CDition 


WALDEN 


THOREAU  S  COVE,  \YALDEN  POND 
Showing  Indian  Path  along  the  Shore  (pages  199,  200) 


.WALDEN 

OR 

LIFE  IN  THE  WOODS 

BY 

HENRY  D.  THOREAU 

e* 

WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS  AND 
WITH  NOTES  BY 

FRANCIS  H.  ALLEN 

Associate  Editor  of  Thoreau's  Journal 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

<Cbe  S*toer?iDe  prejtf,  Cambridge 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1893,  1897,  AND  1906,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  *  CO, 
COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


' 

CONTENTS 

NOTE  TO  THE  VISITORS'  EDITION ix 

V    I.  ECONOMY  .  3 


WHERE  I  LIVED,  AND  WHAT  I  LIVED  FOR    .      .    90 

III.  READING 110 

X,IV.  SOUNDS 123 

^.  SOLITUDE 143 

>VI.  VISITORS 155 

VII.  THE  BEAN-FIELD 171 

^VIII.  THE  VILLAGE 185 

IX.  THE  PONDS 192 

X.  BAKER  FARM 223 

XI.  HIGHER  LAWS 232 

vXII.  BRUTE  NEIGHBORS 247 

XIII.  HOUSE-WARMING .263 

XIV.  FORMER  INHABITANTS;  AND  WINTER  VISITORS    .  282 
XV.  WINTER  ANIMALS 299 

XVI.  THE  POND  IN  WINTER 312 

XVII.  SPRING 330 

V XVIII.  CONCLUSION 352 

NOTES 369 

INDEX  .  425 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THOREAU'S   COVE,    WALDEN   POND,   SHOWING   INDIAN 

PATH  ALONG  THE  SHORE Frontispiece 

WALDEN  POND  AND  MOUNT  WACHUSETT      ....    22 
THE  SITE  OF  THOREAU'S  HOUSE  AT  WALDEN  FROM  THE 

POND .48 

Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 

FURNITURE  USED  IN  THOREAU'S  WALDEN  HOUSE      .      .    72 
Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 

THOREAU'S  COVE  AND  THE  MEMORIAL  CAIRN     ...  96 
Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 

SUMMER  AT  WALDEN 126 

WALDEN  FROM  EMERSON'S  CLIFF 144 

PlNES  PLANTED  BY  TfiOREAU  IN  HIS  BfiAN-FlELD         .          .172 

THOREAU'S  FLUTE,  SPY-GLASS,  AND  COPY  OF  WILSON'S 

ORNITHOLOGY 192 

Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 

VIEW  OF  WALDEN  SHOWING  THE  SAND-BAR        .      .      .  200 

Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 
WHITE  POND 220 

Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 
BAKER  FARM 230 

Photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer 

BRISTER'S  SPRING 252 

WALDEN  WTOODS 288 

WALDEN  IN  WINTER 312 

WALDEN  FROM  THE  SITE  OF  THE  HOUSE       ....  356 

Except  as  otherwise  indicated  the  illustrations 
are  from  photographs  by  Herbert  W.  Gleason 


NOTE  TO  THE  VISITORS'  EDITION 

WITH  the  increasing  use  of  the  automobile,  Walden 
Pond,  in  Thoreau's  day  and  for  long  after  so  out  of  the 
way  that  only  an  occasional  pilgrim  reached  its  shores, 
has  now  become  a  favorite  stopping-place  for  tourists 
and  visitors  to  the  historic  and  literary  shrines  of  Con 
cord  and  its  neighborhood,  and  for  many  passing 
through  on  their  way  to  and  from  the  military  canton 
ment  of  Camp  Devens.  Nevertheless  Walden,  through 
the  good  fortune  of  its  ownership,  remains  much  as  it 
was  when  Thoreau  had  his  house  there  in  1845-47.  Its 
waters  are  still  pure  and  limpid;  its  shores  are  still 
wooded  and  unspoiled.  Its  scenery,  as  Thoreau  himself 
said,  "is  on  a  humble  scale,"  but  it  is  none  the  less  beau 
tiful  for  that,  and  in  addition  to  its  natural  attractions 
it  has  the  honor  of  being  undoubtedly  the  most  famous 
body  of  water  of  its  size  in  America.  It  owes  its  fame 
chiefly  to  one  book,  the  book  that  bears  its  name.  The 
book,  of  course,  is  much  more  than  a  description  of  Wal 
den  Pond  and  of  its  author's  life  there.  It  is  the  world  as 
Thoreau  saw  it  and  the  life  in  it  of  an  earnest  seeker  after 
truth.  No  pictures,  however  interesting,  can  fully  illus 
trate  such  a  book,  but  these  that  are  here  presented 
show  something  of  the  physical  surroundings  that  influ 
enced  the  author  of  Walden  and  helped  make  the  book 
what  it  is,  as  well  as  other  things  of  interest  in  connec 
tion  with  Thoreau  and  his  Walden  life. 

The  Notes  at  the  end  of  the  volume  were  prepared 
with  a  view  to  helping  young  people  as  well  as  their 
elders,  and  they  contain  some  definitions  and  explana 
tions  that  may  seem  unnecessary  to  the  mature  reader. 
It  is  hoped,  however,  that  the  information  they  furnish 


x        NOTE  TO  THE  VISITORS'  EDITION 

as  to  the  sources  of  some  of  Thoreau's  obscure  quota 
tions  and  veiled  allusions,  as  well  as  the  side-lights  they 
throw  on  his  life  at  Walden  and  on  the  natural  history 
of  Concord,  will  prove  to  be  of  general  interest. 

F.  H.  A. 
JUNE,  1919. 


. 


WALDEN 


1 

ECONOMY 

I  wrote  the  following  pages,  or  rather  the  bulk 
of  them,  I  lived  alone,  in  the  woods,  a  mile  from  any 
neighbor,  in  a  house  which  I  had  built  myself,  on  the 
shore  of  Walden  Pond,  in  Concord,  Massachusetts,  and 
earned  my  living  by  the  labor  of  my  hands  only.  I  lived 
there  two  years  and  two  months.  At  present  I  am  a  so- 
journer  in  civilized  life  again. 

I  should  not  obtrude  my  affairs  so  much  on  the  notice 
of  my  readers  if  very  particular  inquiries  had  not  been 
made  by  my  townsmen  concerning  my  mode  of  life, 
which  some  would  call  itapertinent,  though  they  do  not 
appear  to  me  at  all  impertinent,  but,  considering  the 
circumstances,  very  natural  and  pertinent.  Some  have 
asked  what  I  got  to  eat;  if  I  did  not  feel  lonesome;  if  I 
was  not  afraid ;  and  the  like.  Others  have  been  curious 
to  learn  what  portion  of  my  income  I  devoted  to  char 
itable  purposes;  and  some,  who  have  large  families,  how 
many  poor  children  I  maintained.  I  will  therefore  ask 
those  of  my  readers  who  feel  no  particular  interest  in  me 
to  pardon  me  if  I  undertake  to  answer  some  of  these 
questions  in  this  book.  In  most  books,  the  7,  or  first  per 
son,  is  omitted;  in  this  it  will  be  retained;  that,  in  re 
spect  to  egotism,  is  the  main  difference.  We  commonly 
do  not  remember  that  it  is,  after  all,  always  the  first  per- 


4  WALDEN 

son  that  is  speaking.  I  should  not  talk  so  much  about 
myself  if  there  were  anybody  else  whom  I  knew  as  well. 
Unfortunately,  I  am  confined  to  this  theme  by  the  narrow 
ness  of  my  experience.  Moreover,  I,  on  my  side,  require 
of  every  writer,  first  or  last,  a  simple  and  sincere  account 
of  his  own  life,  and  not  merely  what  he  has  heard  of 
other  men's  lives;  some  such  account  as  he  would  send 
to  his  kindred  from  a  distant  land;  for  if  he  has  lived 
sincerely,  it  must  have  been  in  a  distant  land  to  me.  Per 
haps  these  pages  are  more  particularly  addressed  to  poor 
students.  As  for  the  rest  of  my  readers,  they  will  accept 
such  portions  as  apply  to  them.  I  trust  that  none  will 
stretch  the  seams  in  putting  on  the  coat,  for  it  may  do 
good  service  to  him  whom  it  fits. 

I  would  fain  say  something,  not  so  much  concerning 
the  Chinese  and  Sandwich  Islanders  as  you  who  read 
these  pages,  who  are  said  to  live  in  New  England;  some 
thing  about  your  condition,  especially  your  outward  con 
dition  or  circumstances  in  this  world,  in  this  town,  what 
it  is,  whether  it  is  necessary  that  it  be  as  bad  as  it  is, 
whether  it  cannot  be  improved  as  well  as  not.  I  have 
travelled  a  good  deal  in  Concord;  and  everywhere,  in 
shops,  and  offices,  and  fields,  the  inhabitants  have  ap 
peared  to  me  to  be  doing  penance  in  a  thousand  remark 
able  ways.  What  I  have  heard  of  Bramins  sitting  ex 
posed  to  four  fires  and  looking  in  the  face  of  the  sun;  or 
hanging  suspended,  with  their  heads  downward,  over 
flames;  or  looking  at  the  heavens  over  .their  shoulders 
"until  it  becomes  impossible  for  them  to  resume  their 
natural  position,  while  from  the  twist  of  the  neck  nothing 
but  liquids  can  pass  into  the  stomach;"  or  dwelling, 


ECONOMY  5 

chained  for  life,  at  the  foot  of  a  tree;  or  measuring  with 
their  bodies,  like  caterpillars,  the  breadth  of  vast  em 
pires  ;  or  standing  on  one  leg  on  the  tops  of  pillars,  — 
even  these  forms  of  conscious  penance  are  hardly  more 
incredible  and  astonishing  than  the  scenes  which  I  daily 
witness.  The  twelve  labors  of  Hercules  were  trifling  in 
comparison  with  those  wliich  my  neighbors  have  under 
taken;  for  they  were  only  twelve,  and  had  an  end;  but 
I  could  never  see  that  these  men  slew  or  captured  any 
monster  or  finished  any  labor.  They  have  no  friend 
lolaus  to  burn  with  a  hot  iron  the  root  of  the  hydra's 
head,  but  as  soon  as  one  head  is  crushed,  two  spring 
up. 

I  see  young  men,  my  townsmen,  whose  misfortune  it 
is  to  have  inherited  farms,  houses,  barns,  cattle,  and 
farming  tools;  for  these  are  more  easily  acquired  than 
got  rid  of.  Better  if  they  had  been  born  in  the  open  pas 
ture  and  suckled  by  a  wolf,  that  they  might  have  seen 
with  clearer  eyes  what  field  they  were  called  to  labor  in. 
Who  made  them  serfs  of  the  soil  ?  Why  should  they  eat 
their  sixty  acres,  when  man  is  condemned  to  eat  only  his 
peck  of  dirt  ?  Why  should  they  begin  digging  their  graves 
as  soon  as  they  arc  born  ?  They  have  got  to  live  a  man's 
life,  pushing  all  these  things  before  them,  and  get  on  as 
well  as  they  can.  How  many  a  poor  immortal  soul  have 
I  met  well-nigh  crushed  and  smothered  under  its  load, 
creeping  down  the  road  of  life,  pushing  before  it  a  barn 
seventy-five  feet  by  forty,  its  Augean  stables  never 
cleansed,  and  one  hundred  acres  of  land,  tillage,  mow 
ing,  pasture,  and  wood-lot!  The  portionless,  who  strug 
gle  with  no  such  unnecessary  inherited  encumbrances, 


(5  WALDEN 

find  it  labor  enough  to  subdue  and  cultivate  a  few  cubic 
feet  of  flesh. 

But  men  labor  under  a  mistake.  The  better  part  of  the 
man  is  soon  plowed  into  the  soil  for  compost.  By  a 
seeming  fate,  commonly  called  necessity,  they  are  em 
ployed,  as  it  says  in  an  old  book,  laying  up  treasures 
which  moth  and  rust  will  corrupt  and  thieves  break 
through  and  steal.  It  is  a  fool's  life,  as  they  will  find 
when  they  get  to  the  end  of  it,  if  not  before.  It  is  said 
that  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha  created  men  by  throwing 
stones  over  their  heads  behind  them:  — 

Inde  genus  durum  sumus,  expcriensque  laborum, 
Et  documents,  damus  qua  simus  origine  nati. 

Or,  as  Raleigh  rhymes  it  in  his  sonorous  way,  — 

"From  thence  our  kind  hard-hearted  is,  enduring  pain  and  care, 
Approving  that  our  bodies  of  a  stony  nature  are." 

So  much  for  a  blind  obedience  to  a  blundering  oracle, 
throwing  the  stones  over  their  heads  behind  them,  and 
not  seeing  where  they  fell. 

Most  men,  even  in  this  comparatively  free  country, 
through  mere  ignorance  and  mistake,  are  so  occupied 
with  the  factitious  cares  and  superfluously  coarse  labors 
of  life  that  its  finer  fruits  cannot  be  plucked  by  them. 
Their  fingers,  from  excessive  toil,  are  too  clumsy  and 
tremble  too  much  for  that.  Actually,  the  laboring  man 
has  not  leisure  for  a  true  integrity  day  by  day;  he  can 
not  afford  to  sustain  the  manliest  relations  to  men;  his 
labor  would  be  depreciated  in  the  market.  He  has  no 
time  to  be  anything  but  a  machine.  How  can  he  remem 
ber  well  his  ignorance  —  which  his  growth  requires  — 


ECONOMY  7" 

who  has  so  often  to  use  his  knowledge  ?  We  should  feed 
and  clothe  him  gratuitously  sometimes,  and  recruit  him 
with  our  cordials,  before  we  judge  of  him.  The  finest 
qualities  of  our  nature,  like  the  bloom  on  fruits,  can  be 
preserved  only  by  the  most  delicate  handling.  Yet  we  do 
not  treat  ourselves  nor  one  another  thus  tenderly. 

Some  of  you,  we  all  know,  are  poor,  find  it  hard  to 
live,  are  sometimes,  as  it  were,  gasping  for  breath.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  some  of  you  who  read  this  book  are 
unable  to  pay  for  all  the  dinners  which  you  have  actually 
eaten,  or  for  the  coats  and  shoes  which  are  fast  wearing 
or  are  already  worn  out,  and  have  come  to  this  page  to 
spend  borrowed  or  stolen  time,  robbing  your  creditors 
of  an  hour.  It  is  very  evident  what  mean  and  sneaking 
lives  many  of  you  live,  for  my  sight  has  been  whetted  by 
experience;  always  on  the  limits,  trying  to  get  into  busi 
ness  and  trying  to  get  out  of  debt,  a  very  ancient  slough, 
called  by  the  Latins  aes  alienum,  another's  brass,  for 
some  of  their  coins  were  made  of  brass ;  still  living,  and 
dying,  and  buried  by  this  other's  brass;  always  pro 
mising  to  pay,  promising  to  pay,  to-morrow,  and  dying 
to-day,  insolvent ;  seeking  to  curry  favor,  to  get  custom, 
by  how  many  modes,  only  not  state-prison  offences; 
lying,  flattering,  voting,  contracting  yourselves  into  a 
nutshell  of  civility,  or  dilating  into  an  atmosphere  of 
thin  and  vaporous  generosity,  that  you  may  persuade 
your  neighbor  to  let  you  make  his  shoes,  or  his  hat,  or 
his  coat,  or  his  carriage,  or  import  his  groceries  for 
him;  making  yourselves  sick,  that  you  may  lay  up 
)mething  against  a  sick  day,  something  to  be  tucked 
vay  in  an  old  chest,  or  in  a  stocking  behind  the  plas- 


8  WALDEN 

tering,  or,  more  safely,  in  the  brick  bank;  no  matter 
where,  no  matter  how  much  or  how  little. 

I  sometimes  wonder  that  we  can  be  so  frivolous,  I . 
may  almost  say,  as  to  attend  to  the  gross  but  somewhat 
foreign  form  of  servitude  called  Negro  Slavery,  there  are 
so  many  keen  and  subtle  masters  that  enslave  both  North 
and  South.  It  is  hard  to  have  a  Southern  overseer;  it  is 
worse  to  have  a  Northern  one ;  but  worst  of  all  when  you 
,  are  the  slave-driver  of  yourself.  Talk  of  a  divinity  in 
man !  Look  at  the  teamster  on  the  highway,  wending  to 
„  market  by  day  or  night;  does  any  divinity  stir  within 
him  ?  His  highest  duty  to  fodder  and  water  his  horses ! 
What  is  his  destiny  to  him  compared  with  the  shipping 
interests  ?  Does  not  he  drive  for  Squire  Make-a-stir  ? 
How  godlike,  how  immortal,  is  he  ?  See  how  he  cowers 
and  sneaks,  how  vaguely  all  the  day  he  fears,  not  being 
immortal  nor  divine,  but  the  slave  and  prisoner  of  his 
own  opinion  of  himself,  a  fame  won  by  his  own  deeds. 
/  Public  opinion  is  a  weak  tyrant  compared  with  our  own 
private  opinion.  What  a  man  thinks  of  himself,  that  itjs_ 
which  determines,  or  rather  indicates,  his  fatej  Self- 
emancipation  even  in  the  West  Indian  provinces  of  the 
fancy  and  imagination,  —  what  Wilberforce  is  there  to 
bring  that  about  ?  Think,  also,  of  the  ladies  of  the  land 
weaving  toilet  cushions  against  the  last  day,  not  to  be 
tray  too  green  an  interest  in  their  fates !  As  if  you  could 
kill  time  without  injuring  eternity. 

\ty^The  mass  o£jgenJ<^ad  lives  of  quiet  desperation.  What 

/  'is  called  resignation  is  confirmed  desperation./   From 

the  desperate  city  you  go  into  the  desperate  country,  and 

have  to  console  yourself  with  the  bravery  of  minks  and 


ECONOMY  9 

muskrats.  A  stereotyped  but  unconscious  despair  is  con 
cealed  even  under  what  are  called  the  games  and  amuse 
ments  of  mankind.  There  is  no  play  in  them,  for  this 
comes  after  work.  But  it  is  a  characteristic  of  wisdom 
not  to  do  desperate  things. 

When  we  consider  what,  to  use  the  words  of  the  cate 
chism,  is  the  chief  end  of  man,  and  what  are  the  true 
necessaries  and  means  of  life,  it  appears  as  if  men  had 
deliberately  chosen  the  common  mode  of  living  because 
they  preferred  it  to  any  other.  Yet  they  honestly  think 
there  is  no  choice  left.  But  alert  and  healthy  natures 
remember  that  the  sun  rose  clear.  It  is  never  too  late 
to  give  up  our  prejudices.  No  way  of  thinking  or  doing, 
however  ancient,  can  be  trusted  without  proof.  What 
everybody  echoes  or  in  silence  passes  by  as  true  to-day 
may  turn  out  to  be  falsehood  to-morrow,  mere  smoke  of 
opinion,  which  some  had  trusted  for  a  cloud  that  would 
sprinkle  fertilizing  rain  on  their  fields.  \\What  old  people  K 
say  you  cannot  do,  you  try  and  find  that  you  can.  Old 
deeds  for  old  people,  and  new  deeds  for  new.  f\  Old  peo 
ple  did  not  know  enough  once,  perchance,  to  fetch  fresh 
fuel  to  keep  the  fire  a-going ;  new  people  put  a  little  dry 
wood  under  a  pot,  and  are  whirled  round  the  globe  with 
the  speed  of  birds,  in  a  way  to  kill  old  people,  as  the 
phrase  is.  Age  is  no  better,  hardly  so  well,  qualified  for 
an  instructor  as  youth,  for  it  has  not  profited  so  much  as 
it  has  lost.  One  may  almost  doubt  if  the  wisest  man  has 
learned  anything  of  absolute  value  by  living.  Practically, 
the  old  have  no  very  important  advice  to  give  the  young, 
their  own  experience  has  been  so  partial,  and  their  lives 
have  been  such  miserable  failures,  for  private  reasons, 


10  WALDEN 

as  they  must  believe ;  and  it  may  be  that  they  have  some 
faith  left  which  belies  that  experience,  and  they  are  only 
less  young  than  they  were.  I  have  lived  some  thirty  years 
on  this  planet,  and  I  have  yet  to  hear  the  first  syllable  of 
valuable  or  even  earnest  advice  from  my  seniors.  They 
have  told  me  nothing,  and  probably  cannot  tell  me  any 
thing  to  the  purpose.  Here  is  life,  an  experiment  to  a 
great  extent  untried  by  me;  but  it  does  not  avail  me  that 
they  have  tried  it.  If  I  have  any  experience  which  I 
think  valuable,  I  am  sure  to  reflect  that  this  my  Mentors 
said  nothing -about. 

One  farmer  says  to  me,  "  You  cannot  live  on  vegetable 
food  solely,  for  it  furnishes  nothing  to  make  bones  with; " 
and  so  he  religiously  devotes  a  part  of  his  day  to  supply 
ing  his  system  with  the  raw  material  of  bones;  walking 
all  the  while  he  talks  behind  his  oxen,  which,  with  vege 
table-made  bones,  jerk  him  and  his  lumbering  plow 
along  in  spite  of  every  obstacle.  Some  things  are  really 
necessaries  of  life  in  some  circles,  the  most  helpless  and 
diseased,  which  in  others  are  luxuries  merely,  and  in 
others  still  are  entirely  unknown. 

The  whole  ground  of  human  life  seems  to  some  to 
have  been  gone  over  by  their  predecessors,  both  the 
heights  and  the  valleys,  and  all  things  to  have  been  cared 
for.  tf According  to  Evelyn,  "  the  wise  Solomon  prescribed 
ordinances  for  the  very  distances  of  trees;  and  the  Ro 
man  praetors  have  decided  how  often  you  may  go  into 
your  neighbor's  land  to  gather  the  acorns  which  fall  on 
it  without  trespass,  and  what  share  belongs  to  that  neigh 
bor."  Hippocrates  has  even  left  directions  how  we  should 
cut  our  nails ;  that  is,  even  with  the  ends  of  the  fingers, 


ECONOMY  11 

neither  shorter  nor  longer.  Undoubtedly  the  very  tedium 
and  ennui  which  presume  to  have  exhausted  the  variety 
and  the  joys  of  life  are  as  old  as  Adam.  But  man's  ca 
pacities  have  never  been  measured;  nor  are  we  to  judge 
of  what  he  can  do  by  any  precedents,  so  little  has  been 
tried.  Whatever  have  been  thy  failures  hitherto,  "be 
not  afflicted,  my  child,  for  who  shall  assign  to  thee  what 
thou  hast  left  undone  ?  " 

We  might  try  our  lives  by  a  thousand  simple  tests;  as, 
for  instance,  that  the  same  sun  which  ripens  my  beans 
illumines  at  once  a  system  of  earths  like  ours.  If  I  had 
remembered  this  it  would  have  prevented  some  mis 
takes.  This  was  not  the  light  in  which  I  hoed  them. 
The  stars  are  the  apexes  of  what  wonderful  triangles! 
What  distant  and  different  beings  in  the  various  man 
sions  of  the  universe  are  contemplating  the  same  one  at 
the  same  moment !  Nature  and  human  life  are  as  various 
as  our  several  constitutions.  Who  shall  say  what  pros 
pect  life  offers  to  another  ?  Could  a  greater  miracle  take 
place  than  for  us  to  look  through  each  other's  eyes  for 
an  instant  ?  We  should  live  in  all  the  ages  of  the  world 
in  an  hour;  ay,  in  all  the  worlds  of  the  ages.  History, 
Poetry,  Mythology!  —  I  know  of  no  reading  of  another's 
experience  so  startling  and  informing  as  this  would  be. 

The  greater  part  of  what  my  neighbors  call  good  I  be 
lieve  in  my  soul  to  be  bad,  and  if  I  repent  of  anything, 
it  is  very  likely  to  be  my  good  behavior.  What  demon 
possessed  me  that  I  behaved  so  well  ?  You  may  say  the 
wisest  thing  you  can,  old  man,  —  you  who  have  lived 
seventy  years,  not  without  honor  of  a  kind,  —  I  hear  an 
irresistible  voice  which  invites  me  away  from  all  that. 


12  WALDEN 

One  generation  abandons  the  enterprises  of  another  like 
stranded  vessels. 

I  think  that  we  may  safely  trust  a  good  deal  more  than 
we  do.  We  may  waive  just  so  much  care  of  ourselves  as 
we  honestly  bestow  elsewhere.  Nature  is  as  well  adapted 
to  our  weakness  as  to  our  strength.  The  incessant  anxi 
ety  and  strain  of  some  is  a  well-nigh  incurable  form  of 
disease.  We  are  made  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of 
what  work  we  do ;  and  yet  how  much  is  not  done  by  us ! 
or,  what  if  we  had  been  taken  sick  ?  How  vigilant  we 
are!  determined  not  to  live  by  faith  if  we  can  avoid  it; 
all  the  day  long  on  the  alert,  at  night  we  unwillingly  say 
our  prayers  and  commit  ourselves  to  uncertainties.  So 
thoroughly  and  sincerely  are  we  compelled  to  live,  rev 
erencing  our  life,  and  denying  the  possibility  of  change. 
This  is  the  only  way,  we  say;  but  there  are  as  many 
ways  as  there  can  be  drawn  radii  from  one  centre.  All 
change  is  a  miracle  to  contemplate;  but  it  is  a  miracle 
which  is  taking  place  every  instant.  Confucius  said, 
*'  To  know\that  we  know  what  we  know,  and  that  we  do 
not  know  what  we  do  not  know,  that  is  true  knowledge." 
When  one  man  has  reduced  a  fact  of  the  imagination  to 
be  a  fact  to  his  understanding,  I  foresee  that  all  men  will 
at  length  establish  their  lives  on  that  basis. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  most  of  the  trouble 
and  anxiety  which  I  have  referred  to  is  about,  and  how 
much  it  is  necessary  that  we  be  troubled,  or  at  least  care 
ful.  It  would  be  some  advantage  to  live  a  primitive  and 
frontier  life,  though  in  the  midst  of  an  outward  civiliza 
tion,  if  only  to  learn  what  are  the  gross  necessaries  of 
life  and  what  methods  have  been  taken  to  obtain  them; 


ECONOMY  13 

or  even  to  look  over  the  old  day-books  of  the  merchants, 
to  see  what  it  was  that  men  most  commonly  bought  at 
the  stores,  what  they  stored,  that  is,  what  are  the  grossest 
groceries.  For  the  improvements  of  ages  have  had  but 
little  influence  on  the  essential  laws  of  man's  existence: 
as  our  skeletons,  probably,  are  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  those  of  our  ancestors. 

By  the  words,  necessary  of  life,  I  mean  whatever,  of 
all  that  man  obtains  by  his  own  exertions,  has  been  from 
the  first,  or  from  long  use  has  become,  so  important  to 
human  life  that  few,  if  any,  whether  from  savageness, 
or  poverty,  or  philosophy,  ever  attempt  to  do  without  it. 
To  many  creatures  there  is  in  this  sense  but  one  neces 
sary  of  life,  Food.  To  the  bison  of  the  prairie  it  is  a  few 
inches  of  palatable  grass,  with  water  to  drink;  unless 
he  seeks  the  Shelter  of  the  forest  or  the  mountain's 
shadow.  None  of  the  brute  creation  requires  more  than 
Food  and  Shelter.  The  necessaries  of  life  for  man  in  this 
climate  may,  accurately  enough,  be  distributed  under 
the  several  heads  of  Food,  Shelter,  Clothing,  and  Fuel; 
for  not  till  we  have  secured  these  are  we  prepared  to 
entertain  the  true  problems  of  life  with  freedom  and  a 
prospect  of  success.  Man  has  invented,  not  only  houses, 
but  clothes  and  cooked  food;  and  possibly  from  the  ac 
cidental  discovery  of  the  warmth  of  fire,  and  the  conse 
quent  use  of  it,  at  first  a  luxury,  arose  the  present  neces 
sity  to  sit  by  it.  We  observe  cats  and  dogs  acquiring  the 
same  second  nature.  By  proper  Shelter  and  Clothing 
we  legitimately  retain  our  own  internal  heat;  but  with 
an  excess  of  these,  or  of  Fuel,  that  is,  with  an  external 
heat  greater  than  our  own  internal,  may  not  cookery 


14  WALDEN 

properly  be  said  to  begin  ?  Darwin,  the  naturalist,  says 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  that  while  his 
own  party,  who  were  well  clothed  and  sitting  close  to  a 
fire,  were  far  from  too  warm,  these  naked  savages,  who 
were  farther  off,  were  observed,  to  his  great  surprise, 
"to  be  streaming  with  perspiration  at  undergoing  such 
a  roasting."  So,  we  are  told,  the  New  Hollander  goes 
naked  with  impunity,  while  the  European  shivers  in  his 
clothes.  Is  it  impossible  to  combine  the  hardiness  of 
these  savages  with  the  intellectualness  of  the  civilized 
man  ?  According  to  Liebig,  man's  body  is  a  stove,  and 
food  the  fuel  which  keeps  up  the  internal  combustion  in 
the  lungs.  In  cold  weather  we  eat  more,  in  warm  less. 
The  animal  heat  is  the  result  of  a  slow  combustion,  and 
disease  and  death  take  place  when  this  is  too  rapid;  or 
for  want  of  fuel,  or  from  some  defect  in  the  draught,  the 
fire  goes  out.  Of  course  the  vital  heat  is  not  to  be  con 
founded  with  fire ;  but  so  much  for  analogy.  It  appears, 
therefore,  from  the  above  list,  that  the  expression,  ani 
mal  life,  is  nearly  synonymous  with  the  expression,  ani 
mal  heat;  for  while  Food  may  be  regarded  as  the  Fuel 
which  keeps  up  the  fire  within  us,  —  and  Fuel  serves 
only  to  prepare  that  Food  or  to  increase  the  warmth  of 
our  bodies  by  addition  from  without,  —  Shelter  and 
Clothing  also  serve  only  to  retain  the  heat  thus  generated 
and  absorbed. 

The  grand  necessity,  then,  for  our  bodies,  is  to  keep 
warm,  to  keep  the  vital  heat  in  us.  What  pains  we  ac 
cordingly  take,  not  only  with  our  Food,  and  Clothing, 
and  Shelter,  but  with  our  beds,  which  are  our  night- 
clothes,  robbing  the  nests  and  breasts  of  birds  to  pre- 


ECONOMY  15 

pare  this  shelter  within  a  shelter,  as  the  mole  has  its  bed 
of  grass  and  leaves  at  the  end  of  its  burrow !  The  poor 
man  is  wont  to  complain  that  this  is  a  cold  world;  and 
to  cold,  no  less  physical  than  social,  we  refer  directly  a 
great  part  of  our  ails.  The  summer,  in  some  climates, 
makes  possible  to  man  a  sort  of  Elysian  life.  Fuel,  ex 
cept  to  cook  his  Food,  is  then  unnecessary;  the  sun  is 
his  fire,  and  many  of  the  fruits  are  sufficiently  cooked  by 
its  rays ;  while  Food  generally  is  more  various,  and  more 
easily  obtained,  and  Clothing  and  Shelter  are  wholly  or 
half  unnecessary.  At  the  present  day,  and  in  this  country, 
as  I  find  by  my  own  experience,  a  few  implements,  a 
knife,  an  axe,  a  spade,  a  wheelbarrow,  etc.,  and  for  the 
studious,  lamplight,  stationery,  and  access  to  a  few  books, 
rank  next  to  necessaries,  and  can  all  be  obtained  at  a 
trifling  cost.  Yet  some,  not  wise,  go  to  the  other  side  of 
the  globe,  to  barbarous  and  unhealthy  regions,  and  de 
vote  themselves  to  trade  for  ten  or  twenty  years,  in  order 
that  they  may  live,  —  that  is,  keep  comfortably  warm, 
—  and  die  in  New  England  at  last.  The  luxuriously  rich 
are  not  simply  kept  comfortably  warm,  but  unnaturally 
hot;  as  I  implied  before,  they  are  cooked,  of  course 
a  la  mode. 

Most  of  the  luxuries,  and  many  of  the  so-called  com 
forts  of  life,  are  not  only  not  indispensable,  but  positive 
hindrances  to  the  elevation  of  mankind.  With  respect 
to  luxuries  and  comforts,  the  wisest  have  ever  lived  a 
more  simple  and  meagre  life  than  the  poor.  The  ancient 
philosophers,  Chinese,  Hindoo,  Persian,  and  Greek, 
were  a  class  than  which  none  has  been  poorer  in  out 
ward  riches,  none  so  rich  in  inward.  We  know  not  much 


16  WALDEN 

about  them.  It  is  remarkable  that  we  know  so  much  of 
them  as  we  do.  The  same  is  true  of  the  more  modern 
reformers  and  benefactors  of  their  race.  None  can  be  an 
impartial  or  wise  observer  of  human  life  but  from  the 
vantage  ground  of  what  we  should  call  voluntary  pov 
erty.  Of  a  life  of  luxury  the  fruit  is  luxury,  whether  in 
agriculture,  or  commerce,  or  literature,  or  art.  There 
are  nowadays  professors  of  philosophy,  but  not  philoso 
phers.  Yet  it  is  admirable  to  profess  because  it  was  once 
admirable  to  live.  To  be  a  philosopher  is  not  merely  to 
have  subtle  thoughts,  nor  even  to  found  a  school,  but  so 
to  love  wisdom  as  to  live  according  to  its  dictates,  a  life 
of  simplicity,  independence,  magnanimity,  and  trust. 
It  is  to  solve  some  of  the  problems  of  life,  not  only  theo 
retically,  but  practically.  The  success  of  great  scholars 
and  thinkers  is  commonly  a  courtier-like  success,  not 
kingly,  not  manly.  They  make  shift  to  live  merely  by 
conformity,  practically  as  their  fathers  did,  and  are  in  no 
sense  the  progenitors  of  a  nobler  race  of  men.  But  why 
do  men  degenerate  ever  ?  What  makes  families  run  out  ? 
What  is  the  nature  of  the  luxury  which  enervates  and 
destroys  nations  ?  Are  we  sure  that  there  is  none  of  it  in 
our  own  lives  ?  The  philosopher  is  in  advance  of  his  age 
even  in  the  outward  form  of  his  life.  He  is  not  fed,  shel 
tered,  clothed,  warmed,  like  his  contemporaries.  How 
can  a  man  be  a  philosopher  and  not  maintain  his  vital 
heat  by  better  methods  than  other  men  ? 

When  a  man  is  warmed  by  the  several  modes  which 
I  have  described,  what  does  he  want  next  ?  Surely  not 
more  warmth  of  the  same  kind,  as  more  and  richer  food, 
larger  and  more  splendid  houses,  finer  and  more  abun- 


ECONOMY  17 

dant  clothing,  more  numerous,  incessant,  and  hotter  fires, 
and  the  like.  When  he  has  obtained  those  things  which 
are  necessary  to  life,  there  is  another  alternative  than  to 
obtain  the  superfluities;  and  that  is,  to  adventure  on  life 
now,  his  vacation  from  humbler  toil  having  commenced. 
The  soil,  it  appears,  is  suited  to  the  seed,  for  it  has  sent 
its  radicle  downward,  and  it  may  now  send  its  shoot  up 
ward  also  with  confidence.  Why  has  man  rooted  him 
self  thus  firmly  in  the  earth,  but  that  he  may  rise  in  the 
same  proportion  into  the  heavens  above  ?  —  for  the  no 
bler  plants  are  valued  for  the  fruit  they  bear  at  last  in  the 
air  and  light,  far  from  the  ground,  and  are  not  treated 
like  the  humbler  esculents,  which,  though  they  may  be 
biennials,  are  cultivated  only  till  they  have  perfected 
their  root,  and  often  cut  down  at  top  for  this  purpose, 
so  that  most  would  not  know  them  in  their  flowering 
seasoli. 

^*C  I  do  not  mean  to  prescribe  rules  to  strong  and  valiant  (1C 
'  natures,  who  will  mind  their  own  "affairs  whether  in  )  <^ 
heaven  or  hell,  and  perchance  build  more  magnificently  £>  < 
and  spend  more  lavishly  than  the  richest,  without  ever 
impoverishing  themselves,  not  knowing  how  they  live, 
—  if,  indeed,  there  are  any  such,  as  has  been  dreamed', 
nor  to  those  who  find  their  encouragement  and  inspira 
tion  in  precisely  the  present  condition  of  things,  and 
cherish  it  with  the  fondness  and  enthusiasm  of  lovers,  — 
and,  to  some  extent,  I  reckon  myself  in  this  number;  I 
do  not  speak  to  those  who  are  well  employed,  in  what 
ever  circumstances,  and  they  know  whether  they  are 
well  employed  or  not ;  —  but  mainly  to  the  mass  of  men 
who  are  discontented,  an3  idly  complaining  of  the  hard- 


18  WALDEN 

ness  oftheir  lot  or  of  the  times,  when  they  might  improve 
them.  There  are  some  who  complain  most  energetically 
and  inconsolably  of  any,  because  they  are,  as  they  say, 
doing  their  duty.  I  also  have  in  my  mind  that  seemingly 
wealthy,  but  most  terribly  impoverished  class  of  all,  who 
have  accumulated  dross,  but  know  not  how  to  use  it,  or 
get  rid  of  it,  and  thus  have  forged  their  own  golden  or 
silver  fetters. 

If  I  should  attempt  to  tell  how  I  have  desired  to  spend 
my  life  in  years  past,  it  would  probably  surprise  those 
of  my  readers  who  are  somewhat  acquainted  with  its 
actual  history;  it  would  certainly  astonish  those  who 
know  nothing  about  it.  I  will  only  hint  at  some  of  the 
enterprises  which  I  have  cherished. 

In  any  weather,  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  I  have 
been  anxious  to  improve  the  nick  of  time,  and  notch  it 
on  my  stick  too;  to  stand  on  the  meeting  of  two  eter 
nities,  the  past  and  future,  which  is  precisely  the  present 
moment;  to  toe  that  line.  You  will  pardon  some  ob 
scurities,  for  there  are  more  secrets  in  my  trade  than  in 
most  men's,  and  yet  not  voluntarily  kept,  but  insep 
arable  from  its  very  nature.  I  would  gladly  tell  all  that 
I  know  about  it,  and  never  paint  "  No  Admittance  "  on 
my  gate. 

I  long  ago  lost  a  hound,  a  bay  horse,  and  a  turtle 
dove,  and  am  still  on  their  trail.  Many  are  the  travellers 
I  have  spoken  concerning  them,  deseribing  their  tracks 
and  what  calls  they  answered  to.  I  have  met  one  or  two 
who  had  heard  the  hound,  and  the  tramp  of  the  horse, 
and  even  seen  the  dove  disappear  behind  a  cloud,  and 


ECONOMY  19 

they  seemed  as  anxious  to  recover  them  as  if  they  had 
lost  them  themselves. 

To  anticipate,  not  the  sunrise  and  the  dawn  merely, 
but,  if  possible,  Nature  herself!  How  many  mornings, 
summer  and  winter,  before  yet  any  neighbor  was  stir 
ring  about  his  business,  have  I  been  about  mine!  No 
doubt,  many  of  my  townsmen  have  met  me  returning 
from  this  enterprise,  farmers  starting  for  Boston  in  the 
twilight,  or  woodchoppers  going  to  their  work.  It  is  true, 
I  never  assisted  the  sun  materially  in  his  rising,  but, 
doubt  not,  it  was  of  the  last  importance  only  to  be  pre 
sent  at  it. 

So  many  autumn,  ay,  and  winter  days,  spent  outside 
the  town,  trying  to  hear  what  was  in  the  wind,  to  hear 
and  carry  it  express !  I  well-nigh  sunk  all  my  capital  in 
it,  and  lost  my  own  breath  into  the  bargain,  running  in 
the  face  of  it.  If  it  had  concerned  either  of  the  political 
parties,  depend  upon  it,  it  would  have  appeared  in  the 
Gazette  with  the  earliest  intelligence.  At  other  times 
watching  from  the  observatory  of  some  cliff  or  tree,  to 
telegraph  any  new  arrival ;  or  waiting  at  evening  on  the 
hill-tops  for  the  sky  to  fall,  that  I  might  catch  something, 
though  I  never  caught  much,  and  that,  manna-wise, 
would  dissolve  again  in  the  sun. 

For  a  long  time  I  was  reporter  to  a  journal,  of  no  very 
wide  circulation,  whose  editor  has  never  yet  seen  fit  tc 
print  the  bulk  of  my  contributions,  and,  as  is  too  com 
mon  with  writers,  I  got  only  my  labor  for  my  pains. 
However,  in  this  case  my  pains  were  their  own  reward. 

For  many  years  I  was  self-appointed  inspector  of 
snow-storms  and  rain-storms,  and  did  my  duty  faith- 


20  WALDEN 

fully;  surveyor,  if  not  of  highways,  then  of  forest  paths 
and  all  across-lot  routes,  keeping  them  open,  and  ravines 
bridged  and  passable  at  all  seasons,  where  the  public 
heel  had  testified  to  their  utility. 

I  have  looked  after  the  wild  stock  of  the  town,  which 
give  a  faithful  herdsman  a  good  deal  of  trouble  by  leap 
ing  fences;  and  I  have  had  an  eye  to  the  unfrequented 
nooks  and  corners  of  the  farm ;  though  I  did  not  always 
know  whether  Jonas  or  Solomon  worked  in  a  particular 
field  to-day;  that  was  none  of  my  business.  I  have  wa 
tered  the  red  huckleberry,  the  sand  cherry  and  the  nettle- 
tree,  the  red  pine  and  the  black  ash,  the  white  grape  and 
the  yellow  violet,  which  might  have  withered  else  in  dry 
seasons. 

In  short,  I  went  on  thus  for  a  long  time  (I  may  say  it 
without  boasting),  faithfully  minding  my  business,  till  it 
became  more  and  more  evident  that  my  townsmen  would 
not  after  all  admit  me  into  the  list  of  town  officers,  nor 
make  my  place  a  sinecure  with  a  moderate  allowance. 
My  accounts,  which  I  can  swear  to  have  kept  faithfully, 
I  have,  indeed,  never  got  audited,  still  less  accepted,  still 
less  paid  and  settled.  However,  I  have  not  set  my  heart 
on  that. 

Not  long  since,  a  strolling  Indian  went  to  sell  baskets 
at  the  house  of  a  well-known  lawyer  in  my  neighbor 
hood.  "  Do  you  wish  to  buy  any  baskets  ?  "  he  asked. 
"  No,  we  do  not  want  any,"  was  the  reply.  "  What ! "  ex 
claimed  the  Indian  as  he  went  out  the  gate,  "do  you 
mean  to  starve  us  ?  "  Having  seen  his  industrious  white 
neighbors  so  well  off,  —  that  the  lawyer  had  only  to 
weave  arguments,  and,  by  some  magic,  wealth  and  stand' 


ECONOMY  21 

in  followed,  —  he  had  said  to  himself:  I  will  go  into 
bi  ess;  I  will  weave  Baskets;  it  is  a  thing  which  I  can 
d  Thinking  that  when  he  had  made  the  baskets  he 
v  1  have  done  his  part,  and  then  it  would  be  the  white 
n.  ,iifs  to  buy  them.  He  had  not  discovered  that  it  was 
n  A-(  ssary  for  him  to  make  it  worth  the  other's  while  to 
buy  them,  or  at  least  make  him  think  that  it  was  so,  or 
to  make  something  else  which  it  would  be  worth  his 
while  to  buy.  I  too  had  woven  a  kind  of  basket  of  a  deli 
cate  texture,  but  I  had  not  made  it  worth  any  one's 
while  to  buy  them.  Yet  not  the  less,  in  my  case,  did  I 
think  it  worth  my  while  to  weave  them,  and  instead  of 
studying  how  to  make  it  worth  men's  while  to  buy  my 
baskets,  I  studied  rather  how  to  avoid  the  necessity  of 
selling  them.  The  life  which  men  praise  and  regard  as 
successful  is  but  ojie  kind.  Why  should  we  exaggerate 
any  one  kind  at  the  expense  of  the  others  ? 

Finding  that  my  fellow-citizens  were  not  likely  to 
offer  me  any  room  in  the  court  house,  or  any  curacy  or 
living  anywhere  else,  but  I  must  shift  for  myself,  I  turned 
my  face  more  exclusively  than  ever  to  the  woods,  where 
I  was  better  known.  I  determined  to  go  into  business  at 

once,  and  not  wait  to  acquire  the  usual  capital,  using 

such  slender  means  as  I  had  already  got.  My  purpose 
in  going  to  Walden  Pond  was  not  to  live  cheaply  nor  to 
live  dearly  there,  but  to  transact  some  private  business 
with  the  fewest  obstacles;  to  be  hindered  from  accom 
plishing  which  for  want  of  a  little  common  sense,  a  little 
enterprise  and  business  talent,  appeared  not  so  sad  as 
foolish. 

I  have  always  endeavored  to  acquire  strict  business 


22  WALDEN 

habits;  they  are  indispensable  to  every  man.  If  you* 
trade  is  with  the  Celestial  Empire,  then  some  small 
counting  house  on  the  coast,  in  some  Salem  harbor,  will 
be  fixture  enough.  You  will  export  such  articles  as  the 
country  affords,  purely  native  products,  much  ice  and 
pine  timber  and  a  little  granite,  always  in  native  bot 
toms.  These  will  be  good  ventures.  To  oversee  all  the 
details  yourself  in  person ;  to  be  at  once  pilot  and  cap 
tain,  and  owner  and  underwriter;  to  buy  and  sell  and 
keep  the  accounts;  to  read  every  letter  received,  and 
write  or  read  every  letter  sent;  to  superintend  the  dis 
charge  of  imports  night  and  day;  to  be  upon  many 
parts  of  the  coast  almost  at  the  same  time,  —  often  the 
richest  freight  will  be  discharged  upon  a  Jersey  shore; 
—  to  be  your  own  telegraph,  unweariedly  sweeping  the 
horizon,  speaking  all  passing  vessels  bound  coastwise; 
to  keep  up  a  steady  despatch  of  commodities,  for  the 
supply  of  such  a  distant  and  exorbitant  market;  to 
keep  yourself  informed  of  the  state  of  the  markets,  pros 
pects  of  war  and  peace  everywhere,  and  anticipate  the 
tendencies  of  trade  and  civilization,  —  taking  advan 
tage  of  the  results  of  all  exploring  expeditions,  using 
new  passages  and  all  improvements  in  navigation ;  — 
charts  to  be  studied,  the  position  of  reefs  and  new  lights 
and  buoys  to  be  ascertained,  and  ever,  and  ever,  the 
logarithmic  tables  to  be  corrected,  for  by  the  error  of 
some  calculator  the  vessel  often  splits  upon  a  rock  that 
should  have  reached  a  friendly  pier,  —  there  is  the  un 
told  fate  of  La  Perouse ;  —  universal  science  to  be  kept 
4>Ace-^ith,  studying  the  lives  of  all  great  discoverers  and 
navigators,  great  adventurers  and  merchants,  from 


ECONOMY  23 

Hanno  and  the  Phoenicians  down  to  our  day;  in  fine, 
account  of  stock  to  be  taken  from  time  to  time,  to  know 
how  you  stand.  It  is  a  labor  to  task  the  faculties  of  a 
man,  —  such  problems  of  profit  and  loss,  of  interest,  of 
tare  and  tret,  and  gauging  of  all  kinds  in  it,  as  demand 
a  universal  knowledge. 

I  have  thought  that  Walden  Pond  would  be  a  good 
place  for  business,  not  solely  on  account  of  the  railroad 
and  the  ice  trade ;  it  offers  advantages  which  it  may  not 
be  good  policy  to  divulge ;  it  is  a  good  port  and  a  good 
foundation.  No  Neva  marshes  to  be  filled;  though  you 
must  everywhere  build  on  piles  of  your  own  driving.  It 
is  said  that  a  flood-tide,  with  a  westerly  wind,  and  ice  in 
the  Neva,  would  sweep  St.  Petersburg  from  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

Asjthis-  business  "was  To^Be  entered  into  without  the 
usual  capital,  it  may  not_  be  easy-io__conjecture  where 
those  means,  that  will  still  be  indispensable  to  every 
such  undertaking,  were  to  be  obtained.  As  for  Clothing, 
to  come  at  once  to  the  practical  part  of  the  question, 
perhaps  we  are  led  oftener  by  the  love  of  novelty  and  a 
regard  for  the  opinions  of  men,  in  procuring  it,  than  by 
a  true  utility.  Let  him  who  has  work  to  do  recollect  that 
the  object  of  clothing  is,  first,  to  retain  the  vital  heat, 
and  secondly,  in  this  state  of  society,  to  cover  nakedness, 
and  he  may  judge  how  much  of  any  necessary  or  im 
portant  work  may  be  accomplished  without  adding  to 
his  wardrobe.  Kings  and  queens  who  wear  a  suit  but 
once,  though  made  by  some  tailor  or  dressmaker  to  their 
majesties,  cannot  know  the  comfort  of  wearing  a  suit 
that  fits.  They  are  no  better  than  wooden  horses  to 


24  WALDEN 

hang  the  clean  clothes  on.  Every  day  our  garments 
become  more  assimilated  to  ourselves,  receiving  the  im 
press  of  the  wearer's  character,  until  we  hesitate  to  lay 
them  aside  without  such  delay  and  medical  appliances 
and  some  such  solemnity  even  as  our  bodies.  No  man 
ever  stood  the  lower  in  my  estimation  for  having  a  patch 
in  his  clothes;  yet  I  am  sure  that  there  is  greater  anxiety, 
commonly,  to  have  fashionable,  or  at  least  clean  and 
unpatched  clothes,  than  to  have  a  sound  conscience. 
But  even  if  the  rent  is  not  mended,  perhaps  the  worst 
vice  betrayed  is  improvidence.  I  sometimes  try  my 
acquaintances  by  such  tests  as  this,  —  Who  could  wear 
a  patch,  or  two  extra  seams  only,  over  the  knee  ?  Most 
behave  as  if  they  believed  that  their  prospects  for  life 
would  be  ruined  if  they  should  do  it.  It  would  be  easier 
for  them  to  hobble  to  town  with  a  broken  leg  than  with 
a  broken  pantaloon.  Often  if  an  accident  happens  to  a 
gentleman's  legs,  they  can  be  mended;  but  if  a  similar 
accident  happens  to  the  legs  of  his  pantaloons,  there 
is  no  help  for  it;  fnr^^  ppn.^i^p.rsj,  nnt  what;  is  truly 
respectable,  but  what  is  respecte^  We  know  but  few 
men,  a  great  many  coats  and  breeches.  Dress  a  scare 
crow  in  your  last  shift,  you  standing  shiftless  by,  who 
would  not  soonest  salute  the  scarecrow?  Passing  a 
cornfield  the  other  day,  close  by  a  hat  and  coat  on  a 
stake,  I  recognized  the  owner  of  the  farm.  He  was  only 
a  little  more  weather-beaten  than  when  I  saw  him  last. 
I  have  heard  of  a  dog  that  barked  at  every  stranger  who 
approached  his  master's  premises  with  clothes  on,  but 
was  easily  quieted  by  a  naked  thief.  It  is  an  interesting 
question  how  far  men  would  retain  their  relative  rank 


ECONOMY  25 

i(J;hey  were^  jibaested-oiLiheir ^clothes.  Could  you,  in 
suciTaTcase,  tell  surely  of  any  company  ofwilized  men 
which  belonged  to  the  most  respected  class?  When 
Madam  Pfeiffer,  in  her  adventurous  travels  round  the 
world,  from  east  to  west,  had  got  so  near  home  as  Asiatic 
Russia,  she  says  that  she  felt  the  necessity  of  wearing 
other  than  a  travelling  dress,  when  she  went  to  meet  the 
authorities,  for  she  "was  now  in  a  civilized  country, 
where  .  .  .  people  are  judged  of  by  their  clothes." 
Even  in  our  democratic  New  England  towns  the  acci 
dental  possession  of  wealth,  and  its  manifestation  in 
dress  and  equipage  alone,  obtain  for  the  possessor  al 
most  universal  respect.  But  they  who  yield  such  respect, 
numerous  as  they  are,  are  so  far  heathen,  and  need  to 
have  a  missionary  sent  to  them.  Beside,  clothes  intro 
duced  sewing,  a  kind  of  work  which  you  may  call  end 
less  ;  a  woman's  dress,  at  least,  is  never  done. 

A  man  who  has  at  length  found  something!;©  do  will 
not  need  to  get  a  new  suit  to  do  it  in;  for  him  the  old 
will  do,  that  has  lain  dusty  in  the  garret  for  an  indeter 
minate  period.  Old  shoes  will  serve  a  hero  longer  than 
they  have  served  his  valet,  —  if  a  hero  ever  has  a  valet, 
—  bare  feet  are  older  than  shoes,  and  he  can  make  them 
do.  Only  they  who  go  to  soirees  and  legislative  halls 
must  have  new  coats',  coats  to  change  as  often  as  the 
man  changes  in  them.  But  if  my  jacket  and  trousers, 
my  hat  and  shoes,  are  fit  to  worship  God  in,  they  will 
do;  will  they  not  ?  Wrho  ever  saw  his  old  clothes,  —  his 
old  coat,  actually  worn  out,  resolved  into  its  primitive 
elements,  so  that  it  was  not  a  deed  of  charity  to  bestow 
it  on  some  poor  boy,  by  him  perchance  to  be  bestowed 


26  WALDEN 

on  some  poorer  still,  or  shall  we  say  richer,  who  could 
do  with  less  ?  I  say,  beware  of  all  enterprises  that  require 
new  clothes,  and  not  rather  a  new  wearer  of  clothes.  If 
there  is  not  a  new  man,  how  can  the  new  clothes  be  made 
to  fit  ?  If  you  have  any  enterprise  before  you,  try  it  in 
your  old  clothes.  ^All  men  want,  not  something  to  do 
with,  but  something  to  do,  or  rather  something  to  be. 
Perhaps  we  should  never  procure  a  new  suit,  however 
ragged  or  dirty  the  old,  until  we  have  so  conducted,  so 
enterprised  or  sailed  in  some  way,  that  we  feel  like 
new  men  in  the  old,  and  that  to  retain  it  would  be  like 
keeping  new  wine  in  old  bottles.  Our  moulting  season, 
like  that  of  the  fowls,  must  be  a  crisis  in  our  lives.  The 
loon  retires  to  solitary  ponds  to  spend  it.  Thus  also  the 
snake  casts  its  slough,  and  the  caterpillar  its  wormy 
coat,  by  an  internal  industry  and  expansion ;  for  clothes 
are  but  our  outmost  cuticle  and  mortal  coil.  Otherwise 
we  shall  be  found  sailing  under  false  colors,  and  be  in 
evitably  cashiered  at  last  by  our  own  opinion,  as  well 
as  that  of  mankind. 

We  don  garment  after  garment,  as  if  we  grew  like 
exogenous  plants  by  addition  without.  Our  outside  and 
often  thin  and  fanciful  clothes  are  our  epidermis,  or 
false  skin,  which  partakes  not  of  our  life,  and  may  be 
stripped  off  here  and  there  without  fatal  injury;  our 
thicker  garments,  constantly  worn,  are  our  cellular  integ 
ument,  or  cortex;  but  our  shirts  are  our  liber,  or  true 
bark,  which  cannot  be  removed  without  girdling  and  so 
destroying  the  man.  I  believe  that  all  races  at  some 
seasons  wear  something  equivalent  to  the  shirt.  It  is 
desirable  that  a  man  be  clad  so  simply  that  he  can  lay 


ECONOMY  27 

his  hands  on  himself  in  the  dark,  and  that  he  live  in  all 
respects  so  compactly  and  preparedly  that,  if  an  enemy 
take  the  town,  he  can,  like  the  old  philosopher,  walk  out 
the  gate  empty-handed  without  anxiety.  While  one 
thick  garment  is,  for  most  purposes,  as  good  as  three 
thin  ones,  and  cheap  clothing  can  be  obtained  at  prices 
really  to  suit  customers;  while  a  thick  coat  can  be 
bought  for  five  dollars,  which  will  last  as  many  years, 
thick  pantaloons  for  two  dollars,  cowhide  boots  for  a 
dollar  and  a  half  a  pair,  a  summer  hat  for  a  quarter  of 
a  dollar,  and  a  winter  cap  for  sixty-two  and  a  half  cents, 
or  a  better  be  made  at  home  at  a  nominal  cost,  where  is 
he  so  poor  that,  clad  in  such  a  suit,  of  his  own  earning, 
there  will  not  be  found  wise  men  to  do  him  reverence  ? 
When  I  ask  for  a  garment  of  a  particular  form,  my 
tailoress  tells  me  gravely,  "They  do  not  make  them 
so  now,"  not  emphasizing  the  "  They "  at  all,  as  if  she 
quoted  an  authority  as  impersonal  as  the  Fates,  and  I 
find  it  difficult  to  get  made  what  I  want,  simply  because 
she  cannot  believe  that  I  mean  what  I  say,  that  I  am  so 
rash.  When  I  hear  this  oracular  sentence,  I  am  for  a 
moment  absorbed  in  thought,  emphasizing  to  myself 
each  word  separately  that  I  may  come  at  the  meaning 
of  it,  that  I  may  find  out  by  what  degree  of  consanguinity 
They  are  related  to  me^jmd  what  authority  they  may 
have  in  an  affair  which  affects  me  so  nearly;  and,  finally, 
I  am  inclined  to  answer  her  with  equal  mystery,  and 
without  any  more  emphasis  of  the  "  they,"  —  "  It  if 
true,  they  did  not  make  them  so  recently,  but  they  do 
now."  Of  what  use  this  measuring  of  me  if  she  does 
not  measure  my  character,  but  only  the  breadth  of  my 


28  WALDEN 

( 

shoulders,  as  it  were  a  peg  to  hang  the  coat  on  ?  We  wor 
ship  not  the  Graces,  nor  the  Parcae,  but  Fashion.  /  She 
spins  and  weaves  and  cuts  with  full  authority.  The  head 
/  monkey  at  Paris  puts  on  a  traveller's  cap,  and  all  the 
monkeys  in  America  do  the  same.  I  sometimes  despair 
of  getting  anything  quite  simple  and  honest  done  in  this 
world  by  the  help  of  men.  They  would  have  to  be  passed 
through  a  powerful  press  first,  to  squeeze  their  old  no 
tions  out  of  them,  so  that  they  would  not  soon  get  upon 
their  legs  again ;  and  then  there  would  be  some  one  in 
the  company  with  a  maggot  in  his  head,  hatched .  from 
an  egg  deposited  there  nobody  knows  when,  for  not 
even  fire  kills  these  things,  and  you  would  have  lost 
your  labor.  Nevertheless,  we  will  not  forget  that  some 
Egyptian  wheat  was  handed  down  to  us  by  a  mummy. 
On  the  whole,  I  think  that  it  cannot  be  maintained 
that  dressing  has  in  this  or  any  country  risen  to  the 
dignity  of  an  art.  At  present  men  make  shift  to  wear 
what  they  can  get.  Like  shipwrecked  sailors,  they  put 
on  what  they  can  find  on  the  beach,  and  at  a  little  dis 
tance,  whether  of  space  or  time,  laugh  at  each  other's 
masquerade.  **  Every  generation  laughs  ajt  the  old  fash 
ions,  but  follows  religiously  the  new.  We  are  amused 
at  beholding  the  costume  of  Henry  VIII.,  or  Queen 
Elizabeth,  as  much  as  if  it  was  that  of  the  King  and 
Queen  of  the  Cannibal  Islands.  All  costume  off  a  man 
is  pitiful  or  grotesque.  It  is  only  the  serious  eye  peering 
from  and  the  sincere  life  passed  within  it  which  restrain 
laughter  and  consecrate  the  costume  of  any  people.  Let 
Harlequin  be  taken  with  a  fit  of  the  colic  and  his  trap 
pings  will  have  to  serve  that  mood  too.  When  the 


ECONOMY  29 

soldier  is  hit  by  a  cannon-ball,  rags  are  as  becoming  as 
purple. 

The  childish  and  savage  taste  of  men  and  women 
for  new  patterns  keeps  how  many  shaking  and  squint 
ing  through  kaleidoscopes  that  they  may  discover  the 
particular  figure  which  this  generation  requires  to-day. 
The  manufacturers  have  learned  that  this  taste  is  merely 
whimsical.  Of  two  patterns  which  differ  only  by  a  few 
threads  more  or  less  of  a  particular  color,  the  one  will 
be  sold  readily,  the  other  lie  on  the  shelf,  though  it  fre 
quently  happens  that  after  the  lapse  of  a  season  the  lat 
ter  becomes  the  most  fashionable.  Comparatively,  tat 
tooing  is  not  the  hideous  custom  which  it  is  called.  It  is 
not  barbarous  merely  because  the  printing  is  skin-deep 
and  unalterable. 

I  cannot  believe  that  our  factory  system  is  the  best 
mode  by  which  men  may  get  clothing.  The  condition 
of  the  operatives  is  becoming  every  day  more  like  that 
of  the  English;  and  it j^jinot-be- wondered  at>  since,  as 
far  as  I  have  heard  or  observed,  the  principal  object  is, 
not  that  mankind  may  be  well  and  honestly  clad,  but, 
unquestionably,  that  the  corporations  may  be  enriched. 
In  the  long  run  men  hit  only  what  they  aim  at.  There 
fore,  though  they  should  fail  immediately,  they  had  bet 
ter  aim  at  something  high. 

As  for  a  Shelter,  I  will  not  deny  that  this  is  now  a 
necessary  of  life,  though  there  are  instances  of  men  hav 
ing  done  without  it  for  long  periods  in  colder  countries 
than  this.  Samuel  Laing  says  that  "the  Laplander  in 
his  skin  dress,  and  in  a  skin  bag  which  he  puts  over  his 
head  and  shoulders,  will  sleep  night  after  night  on  the 


30  WALDEN 

snow  ...  in  a  degree  of  cold  which  would  extinguish 
the  life  of  one  exposed  to  it  in  any  woollen  clothing."  He 
had  seen  them  asleep  thus.  Yet  he  adds,  "  They  are  not 
hardier  than  other  people."  But,  probably,  man  did  not 
live  long  on  the  earth  without  discovering  the  conven 
ience  which  there  is  in  a  house,  the  domestic  comforts, 
which  phrase  may  have  originally  signified  the  satisfac 
tions  of  the  house  more  than  of  the  family;  though  these 
must  be  extremely  partial  and  occasional  in  those 
climates  where  the  house  is  associated  in  our  thoughts 
with  winter  or  the  rainy  season  chiefly,  and  two  thirds 
of  the  year,  except  for  a  parasol,  is  unnecessary.  In  our 
climate,  in  the  summer,  it  was  formerly  almost  solely  a 
covering  at  night.  In  the  Indian  gazettes  a  wigwam  was 
the  symbol  of  a  day's  march,  and  a  row  of  them  cut  or 
painted  on  the  bark  of  a  tree  signified  that  so  many 
times  they  had  camped.  Man  was  not  made  so  large 
limbed  and  robust  but  that  he  must  seek  to  narrow  his 
world,  and  wall  in  a  space  such  as  fitted  him.  He  was 
at  first  bare  and  out  of  doors ;  but  though  this  was  plea 
sant  enough  in  serene  and  warm  weather,  by  daylight, 
the  rainy  season  and  the  winter,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
torrid  sun,  would  perhaps  have  nipped  his  race  in  the 
bud  if  he  had  not  made  haste  to  clothe  himself  with 
the  shelter  of  a  house.  Adam  and  Eve,  according  to  the 
fable,  wore  the  bower  before  other  clothes.  Man  wanted 
a  home,  a  place  of  warmth,  or  comfort,  first  of  physical 
warmth,  then  the  warmth  of  the  affections. 

We  may  imagine  a  time  when,  in  the  infancy  of  the 
human  race,  some  enterprising  mortal  crept  into  a  hol 
low  in  a  rock  for  shelter.  Every  child  begins  the  world 


ECONOMY  31 

again,  to  some  extent,  and  loves  to  stay  outdoors,  even 
in  wet  and  cold.  It  plays  house,  as  well  as  horse,  having 
an  instinct  for  it.  Who  does  not  remember  the  interest 
with  which,  when  young,  he  looked  at  shelving  rocks, 
or  any  approach  to  a  cave  ?  It  was  the  natural  yearning 
of  that  portion  of  our  most  primitive  ancestor  which 
still  survived  in  us.  From  the  cave  we  have  advanced 
to  roofs  of  palm  leaves,  of  bark  and  boughs,  of  linen 
woven  and  stretched,  of  grass  and  straw,  of  boards  and 
shingles,  of  stones  and  tiles.  At  last,  we  know  not  what 
it  is  to  live  in  the  open  air,  and  our  lives  are  domestic 
in  more  senses  than  we  think.  From  the  hearth  the 
field  is  a  great  distance.  It  would  be  well,  perhaps,  if 
we  were  to  spend  more  of  our  days  and  nights  without 
any  obstruction  between  us  and  the  celestial  bodies,  if 
the  poet  did  not  speak  so  much  from  under  a  roof,  or 
the  saint  dwell  there  so  long.  Birds  do  not  sing  in  caves, 
nor  do  doves  cherish  their  innocence  in  dovecots. 

However,  if  one  designs  to  construct  a  dwelling-house, 
it  behooves  him  to  exercise  a  little  Yankee  shrewdness, 
lest  after  all  he  find  himself  in  a  workhouse,  a  labyrinth 
without  a  clue,  a  museum,  an  almshouse,  a  prison,  or  a 
splendid  mausoleum  instead.  Consider  first  how  slight 
a  shelter  is  absolutely  necessary.  I  have  seen  Penobscot 
Indians,  in  this  town,  living  in  tents  of  thin  cotton  cloth, 
while  the  snow  was  nearly  a  foot  deep  around  them,  and 
I  thought  that  they  would  be  glad  to  have  it  deeper  to 
keep  out  the  wind.  Formerly,  when  how  to  get  my  liv 
ing  honestly,  with  freedom  left  for  my  proper  pursuits, 
was  a  question  which  vexed  me  even  more  than  it  does 
now,  for  unfortunately  I  am  become  somewhat  callous, 


32  WALDEN 

I  used  to  see  a  large  box  by  the  railroad,  six  feet  long 
by  three  wide,  in  which  the  laborers  locked  up  their 
tools  at  night;  and  it  suggested  to  me  that  every  man 
who  was  hard  pushed  might  get  such  a  one  for  a  dollar, 
and,  having  bored  a  few  auger  holes  in  it,  to  admit  the 
,./  air  at  least,  get  into  it  when  it  rained  and  at  night,  and 
- ,  hook  down  the  lid,  and  so  have  freedom  in  his  love,  and 
in  his  soul  be  free.  This  did  not  appear  the  worst,  nor 
by  any  means  a  despicable  alternative.  You  could  sit 
up  as  late  as  you  pleased,  and,  whenever  you  got  up,  go 
abroad  without  any  landlord  or  house-lord  dogging  you 
for  rent.  Many  a  man  is  harassed  to  death  to  pay  the 
rent  of  a  larger  and  more  luxurious  box  who  would  not 
have  frozen  to  death  in  such  a  box  as  this.  I  am  far 
from  jesting.  Economy  is  a  subject  which  admits  of 
being  treated  with  levity,  but  it  cannot  so  be  disposed 
of.  A  comfortable  house  for  a  rude  and  hardy  race,  that 
lived  mostly  out  of  doors,  was  once  made  here  almost 
entirely  of  such  materials  as  Nature  furnished  ready  to 
their  hands.  Gookin,  who  was  superintendent  of  the 
Indians  subject  to  the  Massachusetts  Colony,  writing 
in  1674,  says,  "The  best  of  their  houses  are  covered 
very  neatly,  tight  and  warm,  with  barks  of  trees,  slipped 
from  their  bodies  at  those  seasons  when  the  sap  is  up, 
and  made  into  great  flakes,  with  pressure  of  weighty 
timber,  when  they  are  green.  .  .  .  The  meaner  sort 
are  covered  with  mats  which  they  make  of  a  kind  of  bul 
rush,  and  are  also  indifferently  tight  and  warm,  but 
not  so  good  as  the  former.  .  .  .  Some  I  have  seen, 
sixty  or  a  hundred  feet  long  and  thirty  feet  broad.  .  .  . 
I  have  often  lodged  in  their  wigwams,  and  found  them 


ECONOMY  33 

as  warm  as  the  best  English  houses."  He  adds  that  they 
were  commonly  carpeted  and  lined  within  with  well- 
wrought  embroidered  mats,  and  were  furnished  with 
various  utensils.  The  Indians  had  advanced  so  far  as 
to  regulate  the  effect  of  the  wind  by  a  mat  suspended 
over  the  hole  in  the  roof  and  moved  by  a  string.  Such 
a  lodge  was  in  the  first  instance  constructed  in  a  day  or 
two  at  most,  and  taken  down  and  put  up  in  a  few  hours ; 
and  every  family  owned  one,  or  its  apartment  in  one. 
^In  the  savage  state  every  family  owns  a  shelter  as 
good  as  the  best,  and  sufficient  for  its  coarser  and  simpler 
wants  ;^but  I  think  that  I  speak  within  bounds  wrhen  I 
say  that,  though  the^  birds  of  the  air  have  their  nests, 
and  the  foxes  their  holes,  and  the  savages  their  wig 
wams,  in  modern  civilized  jodetjjQotjpasrje... than  one 
half  the  families  own  a  shelter.  In  the  large  towns  and 
cities,  where  civilization  especially  prevails,  the  number 
of  those  who  own  a  shelter  is  a  very  small  fraction  of 
the  whole.  The  rest  pay  an  annual  tax  for  this  outside 
garment  of  all,  become  indispensable  summer  and  win 
ter,  which  would  buy  a  village  of  Indian  wigwams,  but 
now  helps  to  keep  them  poor  as  long  as  they  live.  I  do 
not  mean  to  insist  here  on  the  disadvantage  of  hiring 
compared  with  owning,  but  it  is  evident  that  the  savage 
owns  his  shelter  because  it  cuala  KU  IMe,  while  the  civil- 
izecf  man  hires  big  commonly  because  he  cannot  afford 
to  own  it;  nor  can  he,  in  the  long  run,  any  better  afford 
to  hire.  But,  answers  one,  by  merely  paying  this  tax 
the  poor  civilized  man  secures  an  abode  which  is  a 
palace  compared  with  the  savage's.  An  annual  rent  of 
from  twenty-five  to  a  hundred  dollars  (these  are  the 


34  WALDEN 

country  rates)  entitles  him  to  the  benefit  of  the  improve 
ments  of  centuries,  spacious  apartments,  clean  paint  and 
paper,  Rumford  fireplace,  back  plastering,  Venetian 
blinds,  copper  pump,  spring  lock,  a  commodious  cellar, 
and  many  other  things.  But  how  happens  it  that  he  who 
is  said  to  enjoy  these  things  is  so  commonly  a  poor  civ 
ilized  man,  while  the  savage,  who  has  them  not,  is  rich 
as  a  savage  ?  If  it  is  asserted  that  civilization  is  a  real 
advance  in  the  condition  of  man,  —  and  I  think  that  it 
is,  though  only  the  wise  improve  their  advantages,  — 
i  /  it  must  be  shown  that  it  has  produced  better  dwellings 
jpT  without  making  them  more  costly y* and ..the  cost  of  a 
thing  is  the  amount  of  what  I  wilr  call  life  which  is  re 
quired  to  be  exchanged  for  it,  immediately  or  in  the 
long  run./  An  average  house  in  this  neighborhood  costs 
perhaps/eight  hundred  dollars,  and  to  lay  up  this  sum 
will  take  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  the  laborer's  life, 
even  if  he  is  not  encumbered  with  a  family,  —  estimat 
ing  the  pecuniary  value  of  every  man's  labor  at  one 
dollar  a  day,  for  if  some  receive  more,  others  receive 
less ;  —  so  that  he  must  have  spent  more  than  half  his 
life  commonly  before  his  wigwam  will  be  earned.  If  we 
suppose  him  to  pay  a  rent  instead,  this  is  but  a  doubtful 
choice  of  evils.  Would  the  savage  have  been  wise  to 
exchange  his  wigwam  for  a  palace  on  these  terms  ? 

It  may  be  guessed  that  I  reduce  almost  the  whole  ad 
vantage  of  holding  this  superfluous  property  as  a  fund 
in  store  against  the  future,  so  far  as  the  individual  is 
^  concerned,  mainly  to  the  defraying  of  funeral  expenses. 
But  perhaps  a  man  is  not  required  to  bury  himself. 
Nevertheless  this  points  to  an  important  distinction  be- 


ECONOMY  36 

tween  the  civilized  man  and  the  savage;  and,  no  doubt, 
they  have  designs  on  us  for  our  benefit,  in  making  the 
life  of  a  civilized  people  an  institution,  in  which  the  life 
of  the  individual  is  to  a  great  extent  absorbed,  in  order 
to  preserve  and  perfect  that  of  the  race.  But  I  wish  to 
show  at  what  a  sacrifice  this  advantage  is  at  present 
obtained,  and  to  suggest  that  we  may  possibly  so  live 
as  to  secure  all  the  advantage  without  suffering  any  of 
the  disadvantage.  What  mean  ye  by  saying  that  the 
poor  ye  have  always  with  you,  or  that  the  fathers  have 
eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on 
edge? 

"  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  ye  shall  not  have  oc 
casion  any  more  to  use  this  proverb  in  Israel. 

"  Behold  all  souls  are  mine ;  as  the  soul  of  the  father, 
so  also  the  soul  of  the  son  is  mine :  the  soul  that  sinneth, 
it  shall  die." 

When  I  consider  my  neighbors,  the  farmers  of  Con 
cord,  who  are  at  least  as  well  off  as  the  other  classes,  I 
find  that  for  the  most  part  they  have  been  toiling  twenty, 
thirty,  or  forty  years,  that  they  may  become  the  real 
owners  of  their  farms,  which  commonly  they  have  in 
herited  with  encumbrances,  or  else  bought  with  hired 
money,  —  and  we  may  regard  one  third  of  that  toil  as 
the  cost  of  their  houses,  —  but  commonly  they  have 
not  paid  for  them  yet.  It  is  true,  the  encumbrances 
sometimes  outweigh  the  value  of  the  farm,  so  that  the 
farm  itself  becomes  one  great  encumbrance,  and  still  a 
man  is  found  to  inherit  it,  being  well  acquainted  with 
it,  as  he  says.  On  applying  to  the  assessors,  I  am  sur 
prised  to  learn  that  they  cannot  at  once  name  a  dozen  in 


J6  WALDEN 

the  town  who  own  their  farms  free  and  clear.  If  you 
would  know  the  history  of  these  homesteads,  inquire  at 
the  bank  where  they  are  mortgaged.  The  man  who  has 
actually  paid  for  his  farm  with  labor  on  it  is  so  rare  that 
every  neighbor  can  point  to  him.  I  doubt  if  there  are 
three  such  men  in  Concord.  What  has  been  said  of  the 
merchants,  that  a  very  large  majority,  even  ninety-seven 
in  a  hundred,  are  sure  to  fail,  is  equally  true  of  the 
farmers.  With  regard  to  the  merchants,  however,  one 
of  them  says  pertinently  that  a  great  part  of  their  fail 
ures  are  not  genuine  pecuniary  failures,  but  merely 
failures  to  fulfil  their  engagements,  because  it  is  incon 
venient  ;  that  is,  it  is  the  moral  character  that  breaks 
down.  But  this  puts  an  infinitely  worse  face  on  the  mat 
ter,  and  suggests,  beside,  that  probably  not  even  the 
other  three  succeed  in  saving  their  souls,  but  are  per 
chance  bankrupt  in  a  worse  sense  than  they  who  fail 
honestly.  Bankruptcy  and  repudiation  are  the  spring 
boards  from  which  much  of  our  civilization  vaults  and 
turns  its  somersets,  but  the  savage  stands  on  the  un- 
elastic  plank  of  famine.  Yet  the  Middlesex  Cattle  Show 
goes  off  here  with  eclat  annually,  as  if  all  the  joints  of 
the  agricultural  machine  were  suent. 

The  farmer  is  endeavoring  to  solve  the  problem  of  a 
livelihood  by  a  formula  more  complicated  than  the 
problem  itself.  To  get  his  shoestrings  he  speculates  in 
herds  of  cattle.  With  consummate  skill  he  has  set  his 
trap  with  a  hair  springe  to  catch  comfort  and  inde 
pendence,  and  then,  as  he  turned  away,  got  his  own  leg 
into  it.  This  is  the  reason  he  is  poor;  and  for  a  similar 
reason  we  are  all  poor  in  respect  to  a  thousand  savage 


ECONOMY  37 

comforts,  though  surrounded  by  luxuries.    As  Chapman 
sings,  — 

"  The  false  society  of  men  — 

—  for  earthly  greatness 
All  heavenly  comforts  rarefies  to  air." 

And  when  the  farmer  has  got  his  house,  he  may  not 
be  the  richer  but  the  poorer  for  it,  antLiJ,  be  the  house 
that  has  got  him.  As  I  understand  it,  that  was  a  valid 
o^rjer^ron^n-gedlby  Momus  against  the  house  which 
Minerva  made,  that  she  "  had  not  made  it  movable,  by 
which  means  a  bad  neighborhood  might  be  avoided;" 
and  it  may  still  be  urged,  for  our  houses  are  such  un 
wieldy  property  that  we  are  often  imprisoned  rather 
than  housed  in  them ;  and  the  bad  neighborhood  to  be 
avoided  is  our  own  scurvy  selves.  I  know  one  or  two 
Families,  at  least,  in  this  town,  who,  for  nearly  a  gener 
ation,  have  been  wishing  to  sell  their  houses  in  the 
outskirts  and  move  into  the  village,  but  have  not  been 
able  to  accomplish  it,  and  only  death  will  set  them  free. 

Granted  that  the  majority  are  able  at  last  either  to 
own  or  hire  the  modern  house  with  all  its  improvements. 
While  civilization  has  been  improving  our  houses,  it  has 
not  equally  improved  the  men  who  are  to  inhabit  them. 
It  has  created  palaces,  but  it  was  not  so  easy  to  create 
noblemen  and  kings.  And  if  the  civilized  man's  pursuits 
are  no  worthier  than  the  savage*  s>  if  he  is  employed  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  in  obtaining  gross  necessaries  and 
comforts  merely,  why  should  he  have  a  better  dwelling 
than  the  former  ? 

But  how  do  the  poor  minority  fare  ?  Perhaps  it  will 
be  found  that  just  in  proportion  as  some  have  been 


38  WALDEN 

placed  in  outward  circumstances  above  the  savage, 
others  have  been  degraded  below  him.  The  luxury  of 
one  class  is  counterbalanced  by  the  indigence  of  an 
other.  On  the  one  side  is  the  palace,  on  the  other  are 
the  almshouse  and  "silent  poor."  The  myriads  who 
built  the  pyramids  to  be  the  tombs  of  the  Pharaohs  were 
fed  on  garlic,  and  it  may  be  were  not  decently  buried 
themselves.  The  mason  who  finishes  the  cornice  of  the 
palace  returns  at  night  perchance  to  a  hut  not  so  good 
as  a  wigwam.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that,  in  a  coun 
try  where  the  usual  evidences  of  civilization  exist,  the 
condition  of  a  very  large  body  of  the  inhabitants  may 
not  be  as  degraded  as  that  of  savages.  I  refer  to  the 
degraded  poor,  not  now  to  the  degraded  rich.  To 
know  this  I  should  not  need  to  look  farther  than  to  the 
shanties  which  everywhere  border  our  railroads,  that  last 
improvement  in  civilization;  where  I  see  in  my  daily 
walks  human  beings  living  in  sties,  and  all  winter  with 
an  open  door,  for  the  sake  of  light,  without  any  visible, 
often  imaginable,  wood-pile,  and  the  forms  of  both  old 
and  young  are  permanently  contracted  by  the  long 
habit  of  shrinking  from  cold  and  misery,  and  the  devel 
opment  of  all  their  limbs  and  faculties  is  checked.  It 
certainly  is  fair  to  look  at  that  class  by  whose  labor 
the  works  which  distinguish  this  generation  are  accom 
plished.  Such  too,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  is  the  con 
dition  of  the  operatives  of  every  denomination  in  Eng 
land,  which  is  the  great  workhouse  of  the  world.  Or  I 
could  refer  you  to  Ireland,  which  is  marked  as  one  of 
the  white  or  enlightened  spots  on  the  map.  Contrast  the 
physical  condition  of  the  Irish  with  that  of  the  North 


ECONOMY  39 

American  Indian,  or  the  South  Sea  Islander,  or  any 
other  savage  race  before  it  was  degraded  by  contact 
with  the  civilized  man.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt  that  that 
people's  rulers  are  as  wise  as  the  average  of  civilized 
rulers.  Their  condition  only  proves  what  squalidness 
may  consist  with  civilization.  I  hardly  need  refer  now 
to  the  laborers  in  our  Southern  States  who  produce  the 
staple  exports  of  this  country,  and  are  themselves  a 
staple  production  of  the  South.  But  to  confine  myself 
to  those  who  are  said  to  be  in  moderate  circumstances. 

Most  men  appear  never  to  have  considered  what  a 
house  is,  and  are  actually  though  needlessly  poor  all 
their  lives  because  they  think  that  they  must  have  such 
a  one  as  their  neighbors  have.  As  if  one  were  to  wear 
any  sort  of  coat  which  the  tailor  might  cut  out  for  him, 
or,  gradually  leaving  off  palm-leaf  hat  or  cap  of  wood- 
chuck  skin,  complain  of  hard  times  because  he  could 
not  afford  to  buy  him  a  crown !  It  is  possible  to  invent 
a  house  still  more  convenient  and  luxurious  than  we 
have,  which  yet  all  would  admit  that  man  could  not 
afford  to  pay  for.  Shall  we  always  study  to  obtain 
more  of  these  things,  and  not  sometimes  to  be  content 
with  less  ?  Shall  the  respectable  citizen  thus  gravely 
teach,  by  precept  and  example,  the  necessity  of  the 
young  man's  providing  a  certain  number  of  superfluous 
glow-shoes,  and  umbrellas,  and  empty  guest  chambers 
for  empty  guests,  before  he  dies  ?  Why  should  not  our 
furniture  be  as  simple  as  the  Arab's  or  the  Indian's  ? 
When  I  think  of  the  benefactors  of  the  race,  whom  we 
have  apotheosized  as  messengers  from  heaven,  bearers 
of  divine  gifts  to  man,  I  do  not  see  in  my  mind  any  reti- 


40  WALDEN 

nue  at  their  heels,  any  carload  of  fashionable  furniture. 
Or  what  if  I  were  to  allow  —  would  it  not  be  a  singular 
allowance  ?  —  that  our  furniture  should  be  more  com 
plex  than  the  Arab's,  in  proportion  as  we  are  morally 
and  intellectually  his  superiors !  At  present  our  houses 
are  cluttered  and  defiled  with  it,  and  a  good  housewife 
would  sweep  out  the  greater  part  into  the  dust  hole, 
and  not  leave  her  morning's  work  undone.  Morning 
work !  By  the  blushes  of  Aurora  and  -the  music  of  Mem- 
non,  what  should  be  man's  morning  work  in  this  world  ? 
I  had  three  pieces  of  limestone  on  my  desk,  but  I  was 
terrified  to  find  that  they  required  to  be  dusted  daily, 
when  the  furniture  of  my  mind  was  all  undusted  still, 
and  I  threw  them  out  the  window  in  disgust.  How,  then, 
could  I  have  a  furnished  house  ?  I  would  rather  sit  in 
the  open  air,  for  no  dust  gathers  on  the  grass,  unless 
where  man  has  broken  ground. 

It  is  the  luxurious  and  dissipated  who  set  the  fashions 
which  the  herd  so  diligently  follow.  The  traveller  who 
stops  at  the  best  houses,  so  called,  soon  discovers  this, 
for  the  publicans  presume  him  to  be  a  Sardanapalus,  and 
if  he  resigned  himself  to  their  tender  mercies  he  would 
soon  be  completely  emasculated.  I  think  that  in  the 
railroad  car  we  are  inclined  to  spend  more  on  luxury 
than  on  safety  and  convenience,  and  it  threatens  with 
out  attaining  these  to  become  no  better  than  a  modern 
drawing-room,  with  its  divans,  and  ottomans,  and  sun 
shades,  and  a  hundred  other  oriental  things,  which  we 
are  taking  west  with  us,  invented  for  the  ladies  of  the 
harem  and  the  effeminate  natives  of  the  Celestial  Em 
pire,  vvhich  Jonathan  should  be  ashamed  to  know  the 


y  ECONOMY  41 

names  of.  I  would  rather  sit  on  a  pumpkin  and  have  it 
all  to  myself  than  be  crowded  on  a  velvet  cushiony  I 
would  rather  ride  on  earth  in  an  ox  cart,  with  a  free 
circulation,  than  go  to  heaven  in  the  fancy  car  of  an 
excursion  train  and  breathe  a  malaria  all  the  way. 

The  very  simplicity  and  nakedness  of  man's  life  in 
the  primitive  ages  imply  this  advantage,  at  least,  that 
they  left  him  still  but  a  sojourner  in  nature.  When  he 
was  refreshed  with  food  and  sleep,  he  contemplated  his 
journey  again.  He  dwelt,  as  it  were,  in  a  tent  in  this 
world,  and  was  either  threading  the  valleys,  or  crossing 
the  plains,  or  climbing  the  mountain-tops.  But  lo !  men 
have  become  the  tools  of  their  tools.  The  man  who  in 
dependently  plucked  the  fruits  when  he  was  hungry  is 
become  a  farmer;  and  he  who  stood  under  a  tree  for 
shelter,  a  housekeeper.  We  now  no  longer  camp  as  for 
a  night,  but  have  settled  down  on  earth  and  forgotten 
heaven.  We  have  adopted  Christianity  merely  as  an 
improved  method  of  at/n-culture,.  We  have  built  for 
this  world  a  family  mansion,  and  for  the  next  a  family 
tomb.  The  best  works  of  art  are  the  expression  of  man's 
struggle  to  free  himself  from  this  condition,  but  the 
effect  of  our  art  is  merely  to  make  this  low  state  com 
fortable  and  that  higher  state  to  be  forgotten.  There  is 
actually  no  place  in  this  village  for  a  work  of  fine  art, 
if  any  had  come  down  to  us,  to  stand,  for  our  lives,  our 
houses  and  streets,  furnish  no  proper  pedestal  for  it. 
There  is  not  a  nail  to  hang  a  picture  on,  nor  a  shelf  to 
receive  the  bust  of  a  hero  or  a  saint.  When  I  consider 
how  our  houses  are  built  and  paid  for,  or  not  paid  for, 
and  their  internal  economy  managed  and  sustained,  I 


42  WALDEN 

wonder  that  the  floor  does  not  give  way  under  the  visitor 
while  he  is  admiring  the  gewgaws  upon  the  mantel 
piece,  and  let  him  through  into  the  cellar,  to  some  solid 
and  honest  though  earthy  foundation.  I  cannot  but 
perceive  that  this  so-called  rich  and  refined  life  is  a 
thing  jumped  at,  and  I  do  not  get  on  in  the  enjoy 
ment  of  the  fine  arts  which  adorn  it,  my  attention  being 
wholly  occupied  with  the  jump ;  for  I  remember  that 
the  greatest  genuine  leap,  due  to  human  muscles  alone, 
on  record,  is  that  of  certain  wandering  Arabs,  who  are 
said  to  have  cleared  twenty-five  feet  on  level  ground. 
Without  factitious  support,  man  is  sure  to  come  to  earth 
again  beyond  that  distance.  The  first  question  which 
I  am  tempted  to  put  to  the  proprietor  of  such  great 
impropriety  is,  Who  bolsters  you  ?  Are  you  one  of  the 
ninety-seven  who  fail,  or  the  three  who  succeed  ?  An 
swer  me  these  questions,  and  then  perhaps  I  may  look 
at  your  bawbles  and  find  them  ornamental.  The  cart 
before  the  horse  is  neither  beautiful  nor  useful.  Before 
we  can  adorn  our  houses  with  beautiful  objects  the 
walls  must  be  stripped,  and  our  lives  must  be  stripped, 
and  beautiful  housekeeping  and  beautiful  living  be  laid 
for  a  foundation :  now,  a  taste  for  the  beautiful  is  most 
cultivated  out  of  doors,  where  there  is  no  house  and  no 
housekeeper. 

Old  Johnson,  in  his  •"  Wonder- Working  Providence," 
speaking  of  the  first  settlers  of  this  town,  with  whom 
he  was  contemporary,  tells  us  that  "they  burrow  them 
selves  in  the  earth  for  their  first  shelter  under  some  hill 
side,  and,  casting  the  soil  aloft  upon  timber,  they  make 
a  smoky  fire  against  the  earth,  at  the  highest  side."  They 


ECONOMY  43 

did  not  "  provide  them  houses,"  says  he,  "  till  the  earth, 
by  the  Lord's  blessing,  brought  forth  bread  to  feed 
them,"  and  the  first  year's  crop  was  so  light  that  "  they 
were  forced  to  cut  their  bread  very  thin  for  a  long  sea 
son."  The  secretary  of  the  Province  of  New  Nether- 
land,  writing  in  Dutch,  in  1650,  for  the  information  of 
those  who  wished  to  take  up  land  there,  states  more 
particularly  that  "  those  in  New  Netherland,  and  espe 
cially  in  New  England,  who  have  no  means  to  build  farm 
houses  at  first  according  to  their  wishes,  dig  a  square 
pit  in  the  ground,  cellar  fashion,  six  or  seven  feet  deep, 
as  long  and  as  broad  as  they  think  proper,  case  the 
earth  inside  with  wood  all  round  the  wall,  and  line  the 
wood  with  the  bark  of  trees  or  something  else  to  pre 
vent  the  caving  in  of  the  earth;  floor  this  cellar  with 
plank,  and  wainscot  it  overhead  for  a  ceiling,  raise  a 
roof  of  spars  clear  up,  and  cover  the  spars  with  bark  or 
green  sods,  so  that  they  can  live  dry  and  warm  in  these 
houses  with  their  entire  families  for  two,  three,  and  four 
years,  it  being  understood  that  partitions  are  run 
through  those  cellars  which  are  adapted  to  the  size  of 
the  family.  The  wealthy  and  principal  men  in  New 
England,  in  the  beginning  of  the  colonies,  commenced 
their  first  dwelling-houses  in  this  fashion  for  two  rea 
sons  :  firstly,  in  order  not  to  waste  time  in  building,  and 
not  to  want  food  the  next  season;  secondly,  in  order 
not  to  discourage  poor  laboring  people  whom  they 
brought  over  in  numbers  from  Fatherland.  In  the 
course  of  three  or  four  years,  when  the  country  became 
adapted  to  agriculture,  they  built  themselves  handsome 
houses,  spending  on  them  several  thousands." 


44  WALDEN 

In  this  course  which  our  ancestors  took  there  was  a 
show  of  prudence  at  least,  as  if  their  principle  were  to 
satisfy  the  more  pressing  wants  first.  But  are  the  more 
pressing  wants  satisfied  now  ?  When  I  think  of  acquir 
ing  for  myself  one  of  our  luxurious  dwellings,  I  am  de 
terred,  for,  so  to  speak,  the  country  is  not  yet  adapted 
to  human  culture,  and  we  are  still  forced  to  cut  our 
spiritual  bread  far  thinner  than  our  forefathers  did 
their  wheaten.  Not  that  all  architectural  ornament  is 
to  be  neglected  even  in  the  rudest  periods ;  but  let  our 
houses  first  be  lined  with  beauty,  where  they  come  in 
contact  with  our  lives,  like  the  tenement  of  the  shell 
fish,  and  not  overlaid  with  it.  But,  alas !  I  have  been 
inside  one  or  two  of  them,  and  know  what  they  are  lined 
with. 

Though  we  are  not  so  degenerate  but  that  we  might 
possibly  live  in  a  cave  or  a  wigwam  or  wear  skins  to-day, 
it  certainly  is  better  to  accept  the  advantages,  though 
so  dearly  bought,  which  the  invention  and  industry  of 
mankind  offer.  In  such  a  neighborhood  as  this,  boards 
and  shingles,  lime  and  bricks,  are  cheaper  and  more 
easily  obtained  than  suitable  caves,  or  whole  logs,  or 
bark  in  sufficient  quantities,  or  even  well-tempered 
clay  or  flat  stones.  I  speak  understandingly  on  this  sub 
ject,  for  I  have  made  myself  acquainted  with  it  both 
theoretically  and  practically.  With  a  little  more  wit  we 
might  use  these  materials  so  as  to  become  richer  than 
the  richest  now  are,  and  make  our  civilization  a  bless- 
fl  ing.  The  civilized  man  is  a  more  experienced  and 
it  wiser  savage.  But  to  make  haste  to  my  own  experi 
ment. 


ECONOMY  45 

Near  the  end  of  March,  1845,  I  borrowed  an  axe  and 
went  down  to  the  woods  by  Walden  Pond,  nearest  to 
where  I  intended  to  build  my  house,  and  began  to  cut 
down  some  tall,  arrowy  white  pines,  still  in  their  youth, 
for  timber.  It  is  difficult  to  begin  without  borrowing, 
but  perhaps  it  is  the  most  generous  course  thus  to  per 
mit  your  fellow-men  to  have  an  interest  in  your  enter 
prise.  The  owner  of  the  axe,  as  he  released  his  hold  on 
it,  said  that  it  was  the  apple  of  his  eye;  but  I  returned 
it  sharper  than  I  received  it.  It  was  a  pleasant  hillside 
where  I  worked,  covered  with  pine  woods,  through 
which  I  looked  out  on  the  pond,  and  a  small  open  field 
in  the  woods  where  pines  and  hickories  were  springing 
up.  The  ice  in  the  pond  was  not  yet  dissolved,  though 
*  fhere  tsrere*i?ome  open  spaces,  and  it  was  all  dark-colored 
and  saturated  with  water.  There  were  some  slight 
flurries  of  snow  during  the  days  that  I  worked  there; 
but  for  the  most  part  when  I  came  out  on  to  the  railroad, 
on  my  way  home,  its  yellow  sand-heap  stretched  away 
gleaming  in  the  hazy  atmosphere,  and  the  rails  shone 
in  the  spring  sun,  and  I  heard  the  lark  and  pewee  and 
other  birds  already  come  to  commence  another  year 
with  us.  They  were  pleasant  spring  days,  in  which  the 
winter  of  man's  discontent  was  thawing  as  well  as  the 
earth,  and  the  life  that  had  lain  torpid  began  to  stretch 
itself.  One  day,  when  my  axe  had  come  off  and  I  had 
cut  a  green  hickory  for  a  wedge,  driving  it  with  a  stone, 
and  had  placed  the  whole  to  soak  in  a  pond-hole  in 
order  to  swell  the  wood,  I  saw  a  striped  snake  run  into 
the  water,  and  he  lay  on  the  bottom,  apparently  without 
inconvenience,  as  long  as  I  stayed  there,  or  more  than 


46  WALDENT 

a  quarter  of  an  hour;  perhaps  because  he  had  not  yet 
fairly  come  out  of  the  torpid  state.  It  appeared  to  me 
that  for  a  like  reason  men  remain  in  their  present  low 
and  primitive  condition ;  but  if  they  should  feel  the  in 
fluence  of  the  spring  of  springs  arousing  them,  they 
would  of  necessity  rise  to  a  higher  and  more  ethereal 
life.  I  had  previously  seen  the  snakes  in  frosty  morn 
ings  in  my  path  with  portions  of  their  bodies  still  numb 
and  inflexible,  waiting  for  the  sun  to  thaw  them.  On 
the  1st  of  April  it  rained  and  melted  the  ice,  and  in  the 
early  part  of  the  day,  which  was  very  foggy,  I  heard  a 
stray  goose  groping  about  over  the  pond  and  cackling 
as  if  lost,  or  like  the  spirit  of  the  fog. 

So  I  went  on  for  some  days  cutting  andjiewing  tim-  - 
ber,  and  also  studs  and  rafters,  all  with  my  narrow  axe, 
not  having  many  communicable  or  scholar-like  thoughts, 
singing  to  myself,  — 

Men  say  they  know  many  things; 

But  lo!  they  have  taken  wings,  — 

The  arts  and  sciences, 

And  a  thousand  appliances; 

The  wind  that  blows 

Is  all  that  anybody  knows. 

I  hewed  the  main  timbers  six  inches  square,  most  of  the 
studs  on  two  sides  only,  and  the  rafters  and  floor  timbers 
on  one  side,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  bark  on,  so  that  they 
were  just  as  straight  and  much  stronger  than  sawed 
ones.  Each  stick  was  carefully  mortised  or  tenoned  by 
its  stump,  for  I  had  borrowed  other  tools  by  this  time. 
My  days  in  the  woods  were  not  very  long  ones;  yet  I 
usually  carried  my  dinner  of  bread  and  butter,  and  read 


ECONOMY  47 

the  newspaper  in  which  it  was  wrapped,  at  noon,  sitting 
amid  the  green  pine  boughs  which  I  had  cut  off,  and  to 
my  bread  was  imparted  some  of  their  fragrance,  for  my 
hands  were  covered  with  a  thick  coat  of  pitch.  Before 
I  had  done  I  was  more  the  friend  than  the  foe  of  the 
pine  tree,  though  I  had  cut  down  some  of  them,  having 
become  better  acquainted  with  it.  Sometimes  a  ram 
bler  in  the  wood  was  attracted  by  the  sound  of  my  axe, 
and  we  chatted  pleasantly  over  the  chips  which  I  had 
made. 

By  the  middle  of  April,  for  I  made  no  haste  in  my 
work,  but  rather  made  the  most  of  it,  my  house  was 
framed  and  ready  for  the  raising.  I  had  already  bought 
the  shanty  of  James  Collins,  an  Irishman  who  worked 
on  the  Fitchburg  Railroad,  for  boards.  James  Collins' 
shanty  was  considered  an  uncommonly  fine  one.  When 
I  called  to  see  it  he  was  not  at  home.  I  walked  about 
the  outside,  at  first  unobserved  from  within,  the  window 
was  so  deep  and  high.  It  was  of  small  dimensions,  with 
a  peaked  cottage  roof,  and  not  much  else  to  be  seen, 
the  dirt  being  raised  five  feet  all  around  as  if  it  were  a 
compost  heap.  The  roof  was  the  soundest  part,  though 
a  good  deal  warped  and  made  brittle  by  the  sun.  Door- 
sill  there  was  none,  but  a  perennial  passage  for  the  hens 
under  the  door-board.  Mrs.  C.  came  to  the  door  and 
asked  me  to  view  it  from  the  inside.  The  hens  were 
driven  in  by  my  approach.  It  was  dark,  and  had  a  dirt 
floor  for  the  most  part,  dank,  clammy,  and  aguish,  only 
here  a  board  and  there  a  board  which  would  not  bear 
removal.  She  lighted  a  lamp  to  show  me  the  inside  of 
the  roof  and  the  walls,  and  also  that  the  board  floor 


48  WALDEN 

extended  under  the  bed,  warning  me  not  to  step  into 
the  cellar,  a  sort  of  dust  hole  two  feet  deep.  In  her  own 
words,  they  were  "good  boards  overhead,  good  boards 
all  around,  and  a  good  window,"  —  of  two  whole 
squares  originally,  only  the  cat  had  passed  out  that  way 
lately.  There  was  a  stove,  a  bed,  and  a  place  to  sit,  an 
infant  in  the  house  where  it  was  born,  a  silk  parasol, 
gilt-framed  looking-glass,  and  a  patent  new  coffee-mill 
nailed  to  an  oak  sapling,  all  told.  The  bargain  was  soon 
concluded,  for  James  had  in  the  meanwhile  returned. 
I  to  pay  four  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents  to-night, 
he  to  vacate  at  five  to-morrow  morning,  selling  to 
nobody  else  meanwhile :  I  to  take  possession  at  six.  It 
were  well,  he  said,  to  be  there  early,  and  anticipate  cer 
tain  indistinct  but  wholly  unjust  claims  on  the  score  of 
ground  rent  and  fuel.  This  he  assured  me  was  the  only 
encumbrance.  At  six  I  passed  him  and  his  family  on 
the  road.  One  large  bundle  held  their  all,  —  bed,  coffee- 
mill,  looking-glass,  hens,  —  all  but  the  cat ;  she  took  to 
the  woods  and  became  a  wild  cat,  and,  as  I  learned  after 
ward,  trod  in  a  trap  set  for  woodchucks,  and  so  became 
a  dead  cat  at  last. 

I  took  down  this  dwelling  the  same  morning,  draw 
ing  the  nails,  and  removed  it  to  the  pond-side  by  small 
cartloads,  spreading  the  boards  on  the  grass  there  to 
bleach  and  warp  back  again  in  the  sun.  One  early 
thrush  gave  me  a  note  or  two  as  I  drove  along  the  wood 
land  path.  I  was  informed  treacherously  by  a  young 
Patrick  that  neighbor  Seeley,  an  Irishman,  in  the  inter 
vals  of  the  carting,  transferred  the  still  tolerable,  straight, 
and  drivable  nails,  staples,  and  spikes  to  his  pocket,  and 


THE  SITE  OF  THOREAu's  HOUSE  AT  WALDEN  FROM 
THE  POND 


ECONOMY  49 

then  stood  when  I  came  back  to  pass  the  time  of  day, 
and  look  freshly  up,  unconcerned,  with  spring  thoughts, 
at  the  devastation ;  there  being  a  dearth  of  work,  as  he 
said.  He  was  there  to  represent  spectatordom,  and 
help  make  this  seemingly  insignificant  event  one  with 
the  removal  of  the  gods  of  Troy. 

I  dug  my  cellar  in  the  side  of  a  hill  sloping  to  the 
south,  where  a  woodchuck  had  formerly  dug  his  bur 
row,  down  through  sumach  and  blackberry  roots,  and 
the  lowest  stain  of  vegetation,  six  feet  square  by  seven 
deep,  to  a  fine  sand  where  potatoes  would  not  freeze  in 
any  winter.  The  sides  were  left  shelving,  and  not  stoned ; 
but  the  sun  having  never  shone  on  them,  the  sand  still 
keeps  its  place.  It  was  but  two  hours'  work.  I  took 
particular  pleasure  in  this  breaking  of  ground,  for  in 
almost  all  latitudes  men  dig  into  the  earth  for  an  equable 
temperature.  Under  the  most  splendid  house  in  the 
city  is  still  to  be  found  the  cellar  where  they  store  their 
roots  as  of  old,  and  long  after  the  superstructure  has 
disappeared  posterity  remark  its  dent  in  the  earth.  The 
house  is  still  but  a  sort  of  porch  at  the  entrance  of  a 
burrow. 

At  length,  in  the  beginning  of  May,  with  the  help  of 
some  of  my  acquaintances,  rather  to  improve  so  good 
an  occasion  for  neighborliness  than  from  any  necessity, 
I  set  up  the  frame  of  my  house.  No  man  was  ever  more 
honored  in  the  character  of  his  raisers  than  I.  They 
are  destined,  I  trust,  to  assist  at  the  raising  of  loftier 
structures  one  day.  I  began  to  occupy  my  house  on  the 
4th  of  July,  as  soon  as  it  was  boarded  »and  roofed,  for 
the  boards  were  carefully  feather-edged  and  lapped,  so 


50  WALDEN 

that  it  was  perfectly  impervious  to  rain,  but  before 
boarding  I  laid  the  foundation  of  a  chimney  at  one  end, 
bringing  two  cartloads  of  stones  up  the  hill  from  the 
pond  in  my  arms.  I  built  the  chimney  after  my  hoeing 
in  the  fall,  before  a  fire  became  necessary  for  warmth, 
doing  my  cooking  in  the  meanwhile  out  of  doors  on  the 
ground,  early  in  the  morning:  which  mode  I  still  think 
is  in  some  respects  more  convenient  and  agreeable  than 
the  usual  one.  When  it  stormed  before  my  bread  was 
baked,  I  fixed  a  few  boards  over  the  fire,  and  sat  under 
them  to  watch  my  loaf,  and  passed  some  pleasant  hours 
in  that  way.  In  those  days,  when  my  hands  were  much 
employed,  I  read  but  little,  but  the  least  scraps  of  paper 
which  lay  on  the  ground,  my  holder,  or  tablecloth, 
afforded  me  as  much  entertainment,  in  fact  answered 
the  same  purpose  as  the  Iliad. 

It  would  be  worth  the  while  to  build  still  more  delib 
erately  than  I  did,  considering,  for  instance,  what  foun 
dation  a  door,  a  window,  a  cellar,  a  garret,  have  in  the 
nature  of  man,  and  perchance  never  raising  any  super 
structure  until  we  found  a  better  reason  for  it  than  our 
temporal  necessities  even.  There  is  some  of  the  same 
fitness  in  a  man's  building  his  own  house  that  there  is  in 
a  bird's  building  its  own  nest.  Who  knows  but  if  men 
constructed  their  dwellings  with  their  own  hands,  and 
provided  food  for  themselves  and  families  simply  and 
honestly  enough,  the  poetic  faculty  would  be  universally 
developed,  as  birds  universally  sing  when  they  are  so 
engaged  ?  But  alas !  we  do  like  cowbirds  and  cuckoos, 
whidh  lay  their  eggs  in  nests  which  other  birds  have 


ECONOMY  51 

built,  and  cheer  no  traveller  with  their  chattering  and 
unmusical  notes.  Shall  we  forever  resign  the  pleasure  of 
construction  to  the  carpenter  ?  What  does  architecture 
amount  to  in  the  experience  of  the  mass  of  men  ?  I  never 
in  all  my  walks  came  across  a  man  engaged  in  so  simple 
and  natural  an  occupation  as  building  his  house.  We 
belong  to  the  community.  It  is  not  the  tailor  alone  who 
is  the  ninth  part  of  a  man ;  it  is  as  much  the  preacher, 
and  the  merchant,  and  the  farmer.  Where  is  this  divi 
sion  of  labor  to  end  ?  and  what  object  does  it  finally 
serve  ?  No  doubt  another  may  also  think  for  me ;  but 
it  is  not  therefore  desirable  that  he  should  do  so  to  the 
exclusion  of  my  thinking  for  myself. 

True,  there  are  architects  so  called  in  this  country, 
and  I  have  heard  of  one  at  least  possessed  with  the  idea 
of  making  architectural  ornaments  have  a  core  of  truth, 
a  necessity,  and  hence  a  beauty,  as  if  it  were  a  revelation 
to  him.  All  very  well  perhaps  from  his  point  of  view, 
but  only  a  little  better  than  the  common  dilettantism. 
A  sentimental  reformer  in  architecture,  he  began  at  the 
cornice,  not  at  the  foundation.  It  was  only  how  to  put 
a  core  of  truth  within  the  ornaments,  that  every  sugar 
plum,  in  fact,  might  have  an  almond  or  caraway  seed  in 
it,  —  though  I  hold  that  almonds  are  most  wholesome 
without  the  sugar,  —  and  not  how  the  inhabitant,  the 
indweller,  might  build  truly  within  and  without,  and  let 
the  ornaments  take  care  of  themselves.  What  reason 
able  man  ever  supposed  that  ornaments  were  something 
outward  and  in  the  skin  merely,  —  that  the  tortoise  got 
his  spotted  shell,  or  the  shell-fish  its  mother-o'-pearl 
tints,  by  such  a  contract  as  the  inhabitants  of  Broad- 


52  WALDEN 

way  their  Trinity  Church  ?  But  a  man  has  no  more  to  do 
with  the  style  of  architecture  of  his  house  than  a  tortoise 
with  that  of  its  shell :  nor  need  the  soldier  be  so  idle  as 
to  try  to  paint  the  precise  color  of  his  virtue  on  his  stand 
ard.  The  enemy  will  find  it  out.  He  may  turn  pale 
when  the  trial  comes.  This  man  seemed  to  me  to  lean 
over  the  cornice,  and  timidly  whisper  his  half  truth  to 
the  rude  occupants  who  really  knew  it  better  than  he. 
What  of  architectural  beauty  I  now  see,  I  know  has 
gradually  grown  from  within  outwrard,  out  of  the  ne 
cessities  and  character  of  the  indweller,  who  is  the  only 
builder,  —  out  of  some  unconscious  truthfulness,  and 
nobleness,  without  ever  a  thought  for  the  appearance, 
and  whatever  additional  beauty  of  this  kind  is  destined 
to  be  produced  will  be  preceded  by  a  like  unconscious 
beauty  of  life.  The  most  interesting  dwellings  in  this 
country,  as  the  painter  knows,  are  the  most  unpretend 
ing,  humble  log  huts  and  cottages  of  the  poor  com 
monly  ;  it  is  the  life  of  the  inhabitants  whose  shells  they 
are,  and  not  any  peculiarity  in  their  surfaces  merely, 
which  makes  them  picturesque  ;  and  equally  interesting 
will  be  the  citizen's  suburban  box,  when  his  life  shall  be 
as  simple  and  as  agreeable  to  the  imagination,  and  there 
is  as  little  straining  after  effect  in  the  style  of  his  dwell 
ing.  A  great  proportion  of  architectural  ornaments  are 
literally  hollow,  and  a  September  gale  would  strip  them 
off,  like  borrowed  plumes,  without  injury  to  the  sub- 
stantials.  They  can  do  without  architecture  who  have 
no  olives  nor  wines  in  the  cellar.  What  if  an  equal  ado 
were  made  about  the  ornaments  of  style  in  literature, 
and  the  architects  of  our  bibles  spent  as  much  time 


ECONOMY  53 

about  their  cornices  as  the  architects  of  our  churches 
do?  So  are  made  the  belles-lettres  and  the  beaux-arts 
and  their  professors.  Much  it  concerns  a  man,  forsooth, 
how  a  few  sticks  are  slanted  over  him  or  under  him,  and 
what  colors  are  daubed  upon  his  box.  It  would  signify 
somewhat,  if,  in  any  earnest  sense,  he  slanted  them  and 
daubed  it;  but  the  spirit  having  departed  out  of  the 
tenant,  it  is  of  a  piece  with  constructing  his  own  coffin, 
—  the  architecture  of  the  grave, —  and  "carpenter"  is 
but  another  name  for  "coffin-maker."  One  man  says, 
in  his  despair  or  indifference  to  life,  take  up  a  handful 
of  the  earth  at  your  feet,  and  paint  your  house  that 
color.  Is  he  thinking  of  his  last  and  narrow  house  ?  Toss 
up  a  copper  for  it  as  well.  What  an  abundance  of  leisure 
he  must  have !  Why  do  you  take  up  a  handful  of  dirt  ? 
Better  paint  your  house  your  own  complexion;  let  it 
turn  pale  or  blush  for  you.  An  enterprise  to  improve 
the  style  of  cottage  architecture!  When  you  have  got 
my  ornaments'  ready,  I  will  wear  them. 

Before  winter  I  built  a  chimney,  and  shingled  the 
sides  of  my  house,  which  were  already  impervious  to 
rain,  with  imperfect  and  sappy  shingles  made  of  the 
first  slice  of  the  log,  whose  edges  I  was  obliged  to 
straighten  with  a  plane. 

I  have  thus  a  tight  shingled  and  plastered  house,  ten 
feet  wide  by  fifteen  long,  and  eight-feet  posts,  with  a 
garret  and  a  closet,  a  large  window  on  each  side,  two 
trap-doors,  one  door  at  the  end,  and  a  brick  fireplace 
opposite.  The  exact  cost  of  my  house,  paying  the  usual 
price  for  such  materials  as  I  used,  but  not  counting  the 
work,  all  of  which  was  done  by  myself,  was  as  follows; 


WALDEN 


and  I  give  the  details  because  very  few  are  able  to  tell 
exactly  what  their  houses  cost,  and  fewer  still,  if  any, 
the  separate  cost  of  the  various  materials  which  com 
pose  them :  — 

Boards $8  03J,  mostly  shanty  boards. 

Refuse  shingles  for  roof  and 

sides 

Laths 

Two  second-hand  windows 

with  glass 

One  thousand  old  brick 
Two  casks  of  lime    .     .     . 

Hair 

Mantle-tree  iron  .... 

Nails 

Hinges  and  screws    .     .     . 

Latch 

Chalk 


Transportation 


4  00 

1  25 

2  43 
4  00 

2  40 
0  31 
0  15 

3  90 
0  14 
0  10 

0  01 

1  40 


That  was  high. 
More  than  I  needed 


I  carried  a  good  part 
on  my  back. 


In  all $28 


These  are  all  the  materials,  excepting  the  timber, 
stones,  and  sand,  which  I  claimed  by  squatter's  right. 
I  have  also  a  small  woodshed  adjoining,  made  chiefly 
of  the  stuff  which  was  left  after  building  the  house. 

I  intend  to  build  me  a  house  which  will  surpass  any 
on  the  main  street  in  Concord  in  grandeur  and  luxury, 
as  soon  as  it  pleases  me  as  much  and  will  cost  me  no 
more  than  my  present  one. 

I  thus  found  that  the  student  who  wishes  for  a  shelter 
can  obtain  one  for  a  lifetime  at  an  expense  not  greater 


ECONOMY  55 

than  the  rent  which  he  now  pays  annually.  If  I  seem  to 
boast  more  than  is  becoming,  my  excuse  is  that  I  brag 
for  humanity  rather  than  for  myself;  and  my  short 
comings  and  inconsistencies  do  not  affect  the  truth  of 
my  statement.  Notwithstanding  much  cant  and  hypoc 
risy,  —  chaff  which  I  find  it  difficult  to  separate  from 
my  wheat,  but  for  which  I  am  as  sorry  as  any  man,  — 
I  will  breathe  freely  and  stretch  myself  in  this  respect, 
it  is  such  a  relief  to  both  the  moral  and  physical  sys 
tem  ;  and  I  am  resolved  that  I  will  not  through  humility 
become  the  devil's  attorney.  I  will  endeavor  to  speak 
a  good  word  for  the  truth.  At  Cambridge  College  the 
mere  rent  of  a  student's  room,  which  is  only  a  little 
larger  than  my  own,  is  thirty  dollars  each  year,  though 
the  corporation  had  the  advantage  of  building  thirty- 
two  side  by  side  and  under  one  roof,  and  the  occupant 
suffers  the  inconvenience  of  many  and  noisy  neighbors, 
and  perhaps  a  residence  in  the  fourth  story. .  I  cannot 
but  think  that  if  we  had  more  true  wisdom  in  these 
respects,  not  only  less  education  would  be  needed,  be 
cause,  forsooth,  more  would  already  have  been  acquired, 
but  the  pecuniary  expense  of  getting  an  education  would 
in  a  great  measure  vanish.  Those  conveniences  which 
the  student  requires  at  Cambridge  or  elsewhere  cost 
him  or  somebody  else  ten  times  as  great  a  sacrifice  of 
life  as  they  would  with  proper  management  on  both 
sides.  Those  things  for  which  the  most  money  is  de 
manded  are  never  the  things  which  the  student  most 
wants.  Tuition,  for  instance,  is  an  important  item  in 
the  term  bill,  while  for  the  far  more  valuable  education 
which  he  gets  by  associating  with  the  most  cultivated 


56  WALDEN 

of  his  contemporaries  no  charge  is  made.  The  mode  of 
founding  a  college  is,  commonly,  to  get  up  a  subscrip 
tion  of  dollars  and  cents,  and  then,  following  blindly 
the  principles  of  a  division  of  labor  to  its  extreme,  —  a 
principle  which  should  never  be  followed  but  with  cir 
cumspection,  —  to  call  in  a  contractor  who  makes  this  a 
subject  of  speculation,  and  he  employs  Irishmen  or  other 
operatives  actually  to  lay  the  foundations,  while  the 
students  that  are  to  be  are  said  to  be  fitting  themselves 
for  it;  and  for  these  oversights  successive  generations 
have  to  pay.  I  think  that  it  would  be  better  than  this, 
for  the  students,  or  those  who  desire  to  be  benefited  by 
it,  even  to  lay  the  foundation  themselves.  The  student 
who  secures  his  coveted  leisure  and  retirement  by  sys 
tematically  shirking  any  labor  necessary  to  man  obtains 
but  an  ignoble  and  unprofitable  leisure,  defrauding 
himself  of  the  experience  which  alone  can  make  leisure 
fruitful.  "  But,"  says  one,  "  you  do  not  mean  that  the 
students  should  go  to  work  with  their  hands  instead  of 
their  heads  ?  "  I  do  not  mean  that  exactly,  but  I  mean 
something  which  he  might  think  a  good  deal  like  that; 
I  mean  that  they  should  not  play  life,  or  study  it  merely, 
while  the  community  supports  them  at  this  expensive 
game,  but  earnestly  live  it  from  beginning  to  end.  How 
could  youths  better  learn  to  live  than  by  at  once  trying 
the  experiment  of  living  ?  Methinks  this  would  exercise 
their  minds  as  much  as  mathematics.  If  I  wished  a  boy 
to  know  something  about  the  arts  and  sciences,  for  in 
stance,  I  would  not  pursue  the  common  course,  which 
is  merely  to  send  him  into  the  neighborhood  of  some 
professor,  where  anything  is  professed  and  practised 


ECONOMY  57 

but  the  art  of  life;  —  to  survey  the  world  through  a 
telescope  or  a  microscope,  and  never  with  his  natural 
eye ;  to  study  chemistry,  and  not  learn  how  his  bread  is 
made,  or  mechanics,  and  not  learn  how  it  is  earned;  to 
discover  new  satellites  to  Neptune,  and  not  detect  the 
motes  in  his  eyes,  or  to  what  vagabond  he  is  a  satellite: 
himself;  or  to  be  devoured  by  the  monsters  that  swarm 
all  around  him,  while  contemplating  the  monsters  in  a 
drop  of  vinegar.  Which  would  have  advanced  the  most 
at  the  end  of  a  month,  —  the  boy  who  had  made  his 
own  jackknife  from  the  ore  which  he  had  dug  and 
smelted,  reading  as  much  as  would  be  necessary  for 
this  —  or  the  boy  who  had  attended  the  lectures  on 
metallurgy  at  the  Institute  in  the  meanwhile,  and  had 
received  a  Rodgers  penknife  from  his  father  ?  Which 
would  be  most  likely  to  cut  his  fingers?  .  .  .  To  my 
astonishment  I  was  informed  on  leaving  college  that  I 
had  studied  navigation !  —  why,  if  I  had  taken  one  turn 
down  the  harbor  I  should  have  known  more  about  it. 
Even  the  poor  student  studies  and  is  taught  only  political 
economy,  while  that  economy  of  living  which  is  synony 
mous  with  philosophy  is  not  even  sincerely  professed 
in  our  colleges.  The  consequence  is,  that  while  he  is  j 
reading  Adam  Smith,  Ricardo,  and  Say,  he  runs  his 
father  in  debt  irretrievably. 

As  with  our  colleges,  so  with  a  hundred  "modern 
improvements;"  there  is  an  illusion  about  them;  there 
is  not  always  a  positive  advance.  The  devil  goes  on 
exacting  compound  interest  to  the  last  for  his  early  share 
and  numerous  succeeding  investments  in  them.  Our 
inventions  are  wont  to  be  pretty  toys,  which  distract 


58  WALDEN 

our  attention  from  serious  things.  They  are  but  in> 
proved  means  to^jan-j^improvej^nd,  an  end  which 
it  was  already  but  too  easy  to  arrive  at ;  as  railroads  lead 
to  Boston  or  New  York.  We  are  in  great  haste  to  con 
struct  a  magnetic  telegraph  from  Maine  to  Texas ;  but 
Maine  and  Texas,  it  may  be,  have  nothing  important 
to  communicate.  Either  is  in  such  a  predicament  as  the 
man  who  was  earnest  to  be  introduced  to  a  distinguished 
deaf  woman,  but  when  he  was  presented,  and  one  end 
of  her  ear  trumpet  was  put  into  his  hand,  had  nothing 
to  say.  As  if  the  main  object  were  to  talk  fast  and  not 
to  talk  sensibly.  We  are  eager  to  tunnel  under  the  At 
lantic  and  bring  the  Old  World  some  weeks  nearer  to  the 
New ;  but  perchance  the  first  news  that  will  leak  through 
into  the  broad,  flapping  American  ear  will  be  that  the 
Princess  Adelaide  has  the  whooping  cough.  After  all,  the 
man  whose  horse  trots  a  mile  in  a  minute  does  not  carry 
the  most  important  messages;  he  is  not  an  evangelist, 
nor  does  he  come  round  eating  locusts  and  wild  honey. 
I  doubt  if  Flying  Childers  ever  carried  a  peck  of  corn 
to  mill. 

One  says  to  me,  "  I  wonder  that  you  do  not  lay  up 
money ;  you  love  to  travel ;  you  might  take  the  cars  and 
go  to  Fitchburg  to-day  and  see  the  country."  But  I  am 
wiser  than  that.  I  have  learned  that  the  swiftest  traveller 
is  he  that  goes  afoot.  I  say  to  my  friend,  Suppose  we  try 
who  will  get  there  first.  The  distance  is  thirty  miles ;  the 
fare  ninety  cents.  That  is  almost  a  day's  wages.  I  re 
member  when  wages  were  sixty  cents  a  day  for  laborers 
on  this  very  road.  Well,  I  start  now  on  foot,  and  get 
there  before  night ;  I  have  travelled  at  that  rate  by  the 


ECONOMY  59 

week  together.  You  will  in  the  meanwhile  have  earned 
your  fare,  and  arrive  there  some  time  to-morrow,  or 
possibly  this  evening,  if  you  are  lucky  enough  to  get  a 
job  in  season.  Instead  of  going  to  Fitchburg,  you  will 
be  working  here  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  And  so, 
if  the  railroad  reached  round  the  world,  I  think  that  I 
should  keep  ahead  of  you ;  and  as  for  seeing  the  country 
and  getting  experience  of  that  kind,  I  should  have  to 
cut  your  acquaintance  altogether. 

Such  is  the  universal  law,  which  no  man  can  ever  out 
wit,  and  with  regard  to  the  railroad  even  we  may  say 
it  is  as  broad  as  it  is  long.  To  make  a  railroad  round  the 
world  available  to  all  mankind  is  equivalent  to  grading 
the  whole  surface  of  the  planet.  Men  have  an  indistinct 
notion  that  if  they  keep  up  this  activity  of  joint  stocks 
and  spades  long  enough  all  will  at  length  ride  some 
where,  in  next  to  no  time,  and  for  nothing;  but  though 
a  crowd  rushes  to  the  depot,  and  the  conductor  shouts 
"  All  aboard ! "  when  the  smoke  is  blown  away  and  the 
vapor  condensed,  it  will  be  perceived  that  a  few  are 
riding,  but  the  rest  are  run  over,  —  and  it  will  be  called, 
and  will  be,  "A  melancholy  accident."  No  doubt  they 
can  ride  at  last  who  shall  have  earned  their  fare,  that 
is,  if  they  survive  so  long,  but  they  will  probably  have 
lost  their  elasticity  and  desire  to  travel  by  that  time. 
This  spending  of  the  best  part  of  one's  life  earning 
money  in  order  to  enjoy  a  questionable  liberty  during 
the  least  valuable  part  of  it  reminds  me  of  the  English 
man  who  went  to  India  to  make  a  fortune  first,  in  order 
that  he  might  return  to  England  and  live  the  life  of  a 
poet.  He  should  have  gone  up  garret  at  once.  "  What !" 


60  WALDEN 

exclaim  a  million  Irishmen  starting  up  from  all  the 
shanties  in  the  land,"  is  not  this  railroad  which  we  have 
built  a  good  thing?"  Yes,  I  answer,  comparatively 
good,  that  is,  you  might  have  done  worse;  but  I  wish, 
as  you  are  brothers  of  mine,  that  you  could  have  spent 
your  time  better  than  digging  in  this  dirt. 

Before  I  finished  my  house,  wishing  to  earn  ten  or 
twelve  dollars  by  some  honest  and  agreeable  method, 
in  order  to  meet  my  unusual  expenses,  I  planted  about 
two  acres  and  a  half  of  light  and  sandy  soil  near  it 
chiefly  with  beans,  but  also  a  small  part  with  potatoes, 
corn,  peas,  and  turnips.  The  whole  lot  contains  eleven 
acres,  mostly  growing  up  to  pines  and  hickories,  and 
was  sold  the  preceding  season  for  eight  dollars  and  eight 
cents  an  acre.  One  farmer  said  that  it  was  "good  for 
nothing  but  to  raise  cheeping  squirrels  on."  I  put  no 
manure  whatever  on  this  land,  not  being  the  owner,  but 
merely  a  squatter,  and  not  expecting  to  cultivate  so 
much  again,  and  I  did  not  quite  hoe  it  all  once.  I  got 
out  several  cords  of  stumps  in  plowing,  which  sup 
plied  me  with  fuel  for  a  long  time,  and  left  small  circles 
of  virgin  mould,  easily  distinguishable  through  the  sum 
mer  by  the  greater  luxuriance  of  the  beans  there.  The 
dead  and  for  the  most  part  unmerchantable  wood  be 
hind  my  house,  and  the  driftwood  from  the  pond,  have 
supplied  the  remainder  of  my  fuel.  I  was  obliged  to  hire 
a  team  and  a  man  for  the  plowing,  though  I  held  the 
plow  myself.  My  farm  outgoes  for  the  first  season 
were,  for  implements,  seed,  work,  etc.,  $14.72j.  The 
seed  corn  was  given  me.  This  never  costs  anything  to « 


ECONOMY  61 

speak  of,  unless  you  plant  more  than  enough.  I  got 
twelve  bushels  of  beans,  and  eighteen  bushels  of  potatoes, 
beside  some  peas  and  sweet  corn.  The  yellow  corn  and 
turnips  were  too  late  to  come  to  anything.  My  whole 
income  from  the  farm  was 

$23  44 
Deducting  the  outgoes     .     .     .     .14  72 J 

There  are  left .  $8  71 J, 

beside  produce  consumed  and  on  hand  at  the  time  this 
estimate  was  made  of  the  value  of  $4.50,  —  the  amount 
on  hand  much  more  than  balancing  a  little  grass  which 
I  did  not  raise.  All  things  considered,  that  is,  considering 
the  importance  of  a  man's  soul  and  of  to-day,  notwith 
standing  the  short  time  occupied  by  my  experiment, 
nay,  partly  even  because  of  its  transient  character,  I 
believe  that  that  was  doing  better  than  any  farmer  in 
Concord  did  that  year. 

The  next  year  I  did  better  still,  for  I  spaded  up  all  the 
land  which  I  required,  about  a  third  of  an  acre,  and  I 
learned  from  the  experience  of  both  years,  not  being  in 
the  least  awed  by  many  celebrated  works  on  husbandry, 
Arthur  Young  among  the  rest,  that  if  one  would  live 
simply  and  eat  only  the  crop  which  he  raised,  and  raise 
no  more  than  he  ate,  and  not  exchange  it  for  an  insuffi 
cient  quantity  of  more  luxurious  and  expensive  things, 
he  would  need  to  cultivate  only  a  few  rods  of  ground, 
and  that  it  would  be  cheaper  to  spade  up  that  than  to 
use  oxen  to  plow  it,  and  to  select  a  fresh  spot  from 
time  to  time  than  to  manure  the  old,  and  he  could  do  all 
,  his  necessary  farm  work  as  it  were  with  his  left  hand  at 


62  WALDEN 

odd  hours  in  the  summer;  and  thus  he  would  not  be 
tied  to  an  ox,  or  horse,  or  cow,  or  pig,  as  at  present.  I 
desire  to  speak  impartially  on  this  point,  and  as  one  not 
interested  in  the  success  or  failure  of  the  present  eco 
nomical  and  social  arrangements.  I  was  more  inde 
pendent  than  any  farmer  in  Concord,  for  I  was  not 
anchored  to  a  house  or  farm,  but  could  follow  the  bent 
of  my  genius,  which  is  a  very  crooked  one,  every  mo 
ment.  Beside  being  better  off  than  they  already,  if  my 
house  had  been  burned  or  my  crops  had  failed,  I  should 
have  been  nearly  as  well  off  as  before. 

I  am  wont  to  think  that  men  are  not  so  much  the 
keepers  of  herds  as  herds  are  the  keepers  of  men,  the 
former  are  so  much  the  freer.  Men  and  oxen  exchange 
work ;  but  if  we  consider  necessary  work  only,  the  oxen 
will  be  seen  to  have  greatly  the  advantage,  their  farm 
is  so  much  the  larger.  Man  does  some  of  his  part  of  the 
exchange  work  in  his  six  weeks  of  haying,  and  it  is  no 
boy's  play.  Certainly  no  nation  that  lived  simply  in  all 
respects,  that  is,  no  nation  of  philosophers,  would  com 
mit  so  great  a  blunder  as  to  use  the  labor  of  animals. 
True,  there  never  was  and  is  not  likely  soon  to  be  a  na 
tion  of  philosophers,  nor  am  I  certain  it  is  desirable  that 
there  should  be.  However,  I  should  never  have  broken 
a  horse  or  bull  and  taken  him  to  board  for  any  work 
he  might  do  for  me,  for  fear  I  should  become  a  horse 
man  or  a  herds-man  merely;  and  if  society  seems  to  be 
the  gainer  by  so  doing,  are  we  certain  that  what  is  one^ 
man's  gain  is  not  another's  loss,  and  that  the  stable-boy 
has  equal  cause  with  his  master  to  be  satisfied  ?  Granted 
that  some  public  works  would  not  have  been  constructed 


ECONOMY  63 

without  this  aid,  and  let  man  share  the  glory  of  such  with 
the  ox  and  horse ;  does  it  follow  that  he  could  not  have 
accomplished  works  yet  more  worthy  of  himself  in  that 
case  ?  When  men  begin  to  do,  not  merely  unnecessary 
or  artistic,  but  luxurious  and  idle  work,  with  their  as 
sistance,  it  is  inevitable  that  a  few  do  all  the  exchange 
work  with  the  oxen,  or,  in  other  words,  become  the 
slaves  of  the  strongest.  Man  thus  not  only  works  for 
the  animal  within  him,  but,  for  a  symbol  of  this,  he 
works  for  the  animal  without  him.  Though  we  have 
many  substantial  houses  of  brick  or  stone,  the  prosperity 
of  the  farmer  is  still  measured  by  the  degree  to  which 
the  barn  overshadows  the  house.  This  town  is  said  to 
have  the  largest  houses  for  oxen,  cows,  and  horses  here 
abouts,  and  it  is  not  behindhand  in  its  public  buildings ; 
but  there  are  very  few  halls  for  free  worship  or  free  speech 
in  this  county.  It  should  not  be  by  their  architecture, 
but  why  not  even  by  their  power  of  abstract  thought, 
that  nations  should  seek  to  commemorate  themselves  ? 
How  much  more  admirable  the  Bhagvat-Geeta  than 
all  the  ruins  of  the  East !  Towers  and  temples  are  the 
luxury  of  princes.  A  simple  and  independent  mind 
does  not  toil  at  the  bidding  of  any  prince.  Genius 
is  not  a  retainer  to  any  emperor,  nor  is  its  material 
silver,  or  gold,  or  marble,  except  to  a  trifling  extent. 
To  what  end,  pray,  is  so  much  stone  hammered  ?  In 
Arcadia,  when  I  was  there,  I  did  not  see  any  hammer 
ing  stone.  Nations  are  possessed  with  an  insane  ambi 
tion  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  themselves  by  the 
amount  of  hammered  stone  they  leave.  What  if  equal 
pains  were  taken  to  smooth  and  polish  their  manners  ? 


64  WALDEN 

One  piece  of  good  sense  would  be  more  memorable  than 
a  monument  as  high  as  the  moon.  I  love  better  to  see 
stones  in  place.  The  grandeur  of  Thebes  was  a  vulgar 
grandeur.  More  sensible  is  a  rod  of  stone  wall  that 
bounds  an  honest  man's  field  than  a  hundred-gated 
Thebes  that  has  wandered  farther  from  the  true  end  of 
life.  The  religion  and  civilization  which  are  barbaric 
and  heathenish  build  splendid  temples;  but  what  you 
might  call  Christianity  does  not.  Most  of  the  stone  a 
nation  hammers  goes  toward  its  tomb  only.  It  buries 
itself  alive.  As  for  the  Pyramids,  there  is  nothing  to 
wonder  at  in  them  so  much  as  the  fact  that  so  many 
men  could  be  found  degraded  enough  to  spend  their 
lives  constructing  a  tomb  for  some  ambitious  booby, 
whom  it  would  have  been  wiser  and  manlier  to  have 
drowned  in  the  Nile,  and  then  given  his  body  to  the 
dogs.  I  might  possibly  invent  some  excuse  for  them  and 
him,  but  I  have  no  time  for  it.  As  for  the  religion  and 
love  of  art  of  the  builders,  it  is  much  the  same  all  the 
world  over,  whether  the  building  be  an  Egyptian  temple 
or  the  United  States  Bank.  It  costs  more  than  it  comes 
to.  The  mainspring  is  vanity,  assisted  by  the  love  of 
garlic  and  bread  and  butter.  Mr.  Balcom,  a  promising 
young  architect,  designs  it  on  the  back  of  his  Vitruvius, 
with  hard  pencil  and  ruler,  and  the  job  is  let  out  to 
Dobson  &  Sons,  stonecutters.  When  the  thirty  centuries 
begin  to  look  down  on  it,  mankind  begin  to  look  up  at 
it.  As  for  your  high  towers  and  monuments,  there  was 
a  crazy  fellow  once  in  this  town  who  undertook  to  dig 
through  to  China,  and  he  got  so  far  that,  as  he  said,  he 
heard  the  Chinese  pots  and  kettles  rattle;  but  I  think 


ECONOMY  65 

that  I  shall  not  go  out  of  my  way  to  admire  the  hole 
which  he  made.  Many  are  concerned  about  the  monu 
ments  of  the  West  and  the  East,  —  to  know  who  built 
them.  For  my  part,  I  should  like  to  know  who  in  those 
days  did  not  build  them,  —  who  were  above  such  trifling. 
But  to  proceed  with  my  statistics. 

By  surveying,  carpentry,  and  day-labor  of  various 
other  kinds  in  the  village  in  the  meanwhile,  for  I  have 
as  many  trades  as  fingers,  I  had  earned  $13.34.  The 
expense  of  food  for  eight  months,  namely,  from  July  4th 
to  March  1st,  the  time  when  these  estimates  were  made, 
though  I  lived  there  more  than  two  years,  —  not  count 
ing  potatoes,  a  little  green  corn,  and  some  peas,  which 
I  had  raised,  nor  considering  the  value  of  what  was  on 
hand  at  the  last  date,  —  was 

Rice $1  7Sf 

Molasses     .     .     .     .  1  73    Cheapest  form  of  the  saccharine. 

Rye  meal    ....   1  04f 

Indian  meal     ...  0  99J  Cheaper  than  rye. 

Pork 0  22 

{Costs  more  than  Indian  >» 
meal,  both  money  and 
trouble. 

Sugar 0  80 

Lard        0  65 

Apples 0  25 

Dried  apple  .  .  .  0  22 
Sweet  potatoes  .  .  0  10 
One  pumpkin  ...  0  6 
One  watermelon  ..02 
Salt  .  0  3 


66  WALDEN 

Yes,  I  did  eat  $8.74,  all  told;  but  I  should  not  thus 
unblushingly  publish  my  guilt,  if  I  did  not  know  that 
most  of  my  readers  were  equally  guilty  with  myself,  and 
that  their  deeds  would  look  no  better  in  print.  The  next 
year  I  sometimes  caught  a  mess  of  fish  for  my  dinner, 
and  once  I  went  so  far  as  to  slaughter  a  woodchuck 
which  ravaged  my  bean-field,  —  effect  his  transmigra 
tion,  as  a  Tartar  would  say,  —  and  devour  him,  partly 
for  experiment's  sake;  but  though  it  afforded  me  a 
momentary  enjoyment,  notwithstanding  a  musky  flavor, 
I  saw  that  the  longest  use  would  not  make  that  a  good 
practice,  however  it  might  seem  to  have  your  wood- 
chucks  ready  dressed  by  the  village  butcher. 

Clothing  and  some  incidental  expenses  within  the 
same  dates,  though  little  can  be  inferred  from  this  item, 
amounted  to 

$8  40} 
Oil  and  some  household  utensils  .     .     2  00 

So  that  all  the  pecuniary  outgoes,  excepting  for  washing 
and  mending,  which  for  the  most  part  were  done  out 
of  the  house,  and  their  bills  have  not  yet  been  received, 
—  and  these  are  all  and  more  than  all  the  ways  by 
which  money  necessarily  goes  out  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  —  were 

House $28  12J 

Farm  one  year 14  72-J 

Food  eight  months 8  74 

Clothing,  etc.,  eight  months    ...  8  40f 

Oil,  etc.,  eight  months 2  00 

In  all  ,  1     .    $61  99} 


ECONOMY  67 

I  address  myself  now  to  those  of  my  readers  who  have  a 
living  to  get.  And  to  meet  this  I  have  for  farm  produce 

sold 

$23  44 
Earned  by  day-labor 13  34 

In  all $36  78, 

which  subtracted  from  the  sum  of  the  outgoes  leaves  a 
balance  of  $25.2lJ  on  the  one  side, — this  being  very 
nearly  the  means  with  which  I  started,  and  the  measure 
of  expenses  to  be  incurred,  —  and  on  the  other,  beside 
the  leisure  and  independence  and  health  thus  secured, 
a  comfortable  house  for  me  as  long  as  I  choose  to 
occupy  it. 

These  statistics,  however  accidental  and  therefore 
uninstructive  they  may  appear,  as  they  have  a  certain 
completeness,  have  a  certain  value  also.  Nothing  was 
given  me  of  wrhich  I  have  not  rendered  some  account. 
It  appears  from  the  above  estimate,  that  my  food  alone 
cost  me  in  money  about  twenty-seven  cents  a  week. 
It  was,  for  nearly  two  years  after  this,  rye  and  Indian 
meal  without  yeast,  potatoes,  rice,  a  very  little  salt  pork, 
molasses,  and  salt ;  and  my  drink,  water.  It  was  fit  that 
I  should  live  on  rice,  mainly,  who  loved  so  well  the 
philosophy  of  India.  To  meet  the  objections  of  some 
inveterate  cavillers,  I  may  as  well  state,  that  if  I  dined 
out  occasionally,  as  I  always  had  done,  and  I  trust  shall 
have  opportunities  to  do  again,  it  was  frequently  to  the 
detriment  of  my  domestic  arrangements.  But  the  din 
ing  out,  being,  as  I  have  stated,  a  constant  element, 
does  not  in  the  least  affect  a  comparative  statement  like 
this. 


68  WALDEN 

I  learned  from  my  two  years'  experience  that  it  would 
cost  incredibly  little  trouble  to  obtain  one's  necessary 
food,  even  in  this  latitude;  that  a  man  may  use  as  simple 
a  diet  as  the  animals,  and  yet  retain  health  and  strength. 
I  have  made  a  satisfactory  dinner,  satisfactory  on  sev 
eral  accounts,  simply  off  a  dish  of  purslane  (Portulaca 
oleracea)  which  I  gathered  in  my  cornfield,  boiled  and 
salted.  I  give  the  Latin  on  account  of  the  savoriness  of 
the  trivial  name.  And  pray  what  more  can  a  reasonable 
man  desire,  in  peaceful  times,  in  ordinary  noons,  than  a 
sufficient  number  of  ears  of  green  sweet  corn  boiled, 
with  the  addition  of  salt  ?  Even  the  little  variety  which 
I  used  was  a  yielding  to  the  demands  of  appetite,  and 
not  of  health.  Yet  men  have  come  to  such  a  pass  that 
they  frequently  starve,  not  for  want  of  necessaries,  but 
for  want  of  luxuries;  and  I  know  a  good  woman  who 
thinks  that  her  son  lost  his  life  because  he  took  to  drink 
ing  water  only. 

The  reader  will  perceive  that  I  am  treating  the  sub 
ject  rather  from  an  economic  than  a  dietetic  point  oi 
view,  and  he  will  not  venture  to  put  my  abstemiousness 
to  the  test  unless  he  has  a  well-stocked  larder. 

Bread  I  at  first  made  of  pure  Indian  meal  and  salt, 
genuine  hoe-cakes,  which  I  baked  before  my  fire  out  of 
doors  on  a  shingle  or  the  end  of  a  stick  of  timber  sawed 
off  in  building  my  house ;  but  it  was  wont  to  get  smoked 
and  to  have  a  piny  flavor.  I  tried  flour  also;  but  have 
at  last  found  a  mixture  of  rye  and  Indian  meal  most  con 
venient  and  agreeable.  In  cold  weather  it  was  no  little 
amusement  to  bake  several  small  loaves  of  this  in  suc 
cession,  tending  and  turning  them  as  carefully  as  an 


ECONOMY  69 

Egyptian  his  hatching  eggs.  They  were  a  real  cereal 
fruit  which  I  ripened,  and  they  had  to  my  senses  a  fra 
grance  like  that  of  other  noble  fruits,  which  I  kept  in  as 
long  as  possible  by  wrapping  them  in  cloths.  I  made  a 
study  of  the  ancient  and  indispensable  art  of  bread- 
making,  consulting  such  authorities  as  offered,  going 
back  to  the  primitive  days  and  first  invention  of  the 
unleavened  kind,  when  from  the  wildness  of  nuts  and 
meats  men  first  reached  the  mildness  and  refinement 
of  this  diet,  and  travelling  gradually  down  in  my  studies 
through  that  accidental  souring  of  the  dough  which,  it 
is  supposed,  taught  the  leavening  process,  and  through 
the  various  fermentations  thereafter,  till  I  came  to  "  good, 
sweet,  wholesome  bread,"  the  staff  of  life.  Leaven, 
which  some  deem  the  soul  of  bread,  the  spiritus  which 
fills  its  cellular  tissue,  which  is  religiously  preserved 
like  the  vestal  fire,  —  some  precious  bottleful,  I  suppose, 
first  brought  over  in  the  Mayflower,  did  the  business 
for  America,  and  its  influence  is  still  rising,  swelling, 
spreading,  in  cerealian  billows  over  the  land,  —  this 
seed  I  regularly  and  faithfully  procured  from  the  village, 
till  at  length  one  morning  I  forgot  the  rules,  and  scalded 
my  yeast;  by  which  accident  I  discovered  that  even 
this  was  not  indispensable,  —  for  my  discoveries  were 
not  by  the  synthetic  but  analytic  process,  —  and  I 
have  gladly  omitted  it  since,  though  most  housewives 
earnestly  assured  me  that  safe  and  wholesome  bread 
without  yeast  might  not  be,  and  elderly  people  pro 
phesied  a  speedy  decay  of  the  vital  forces.  Yet  I  find  it 
not  to  be  an  essential  ingredient,  and  after  going  with 
out  it  for  a  year  am  still  in  the  land  of  the  living;  and  I 


70  WALDEN 

am  glad  to  escape  the  trivialness  of  carrying  a  bottle- 
ful  in  my  pocket,  which  would  sometimes  pop  and  dis 
charge  its  contents  to  my  discomfiture.  It  is  simpler  and 
more  respectable  to  omit  it.  Man  is  an  animal  who 
more  than  any  other  can  adapt  himself  to  all  climates 
and  circumstances.  Neither  did  I  put  any  sal-soda,  or 
other  acid  or  alkali,  into  my  bread.  It  would  seem  that  I 
made  it  according  to  the  recipe  which  Marcus  Porcius 
Cato  gave  about  two  centuries  before  Christ.  "  Panem 
depsticium  sic  facito.  Manus  mortariumque  bene  lavato. 
Farinam  in  mortarium  indito,  aquae  paulatim  addito, 
subigitoque  pulchre.  Ubi  bene  subegeris,  defingito,  co- 
quitoque  sub  testu."  Which  I  take  to  mean,  "Make 
kneaded  bread  thus.  Wash  your  hands  and  trough  well. 
Put  the  meal  into  the  trough,  add  water  gradually,  and 
knead  it  thoroughly.  When  you  have  kneaded  it 
well,  mould  it,  and  bake  it  under  a  cover,"  that  is,  in  a 
baking-kettle.  Not  a  word  about  leaven.  But  I  did  not 
always  use  this  staff  of  life.  At  one  time,  owing  to  the 
emptiness  of  my  purse,  I  saw  none  of  it  for  more  than  a 
month. 

Every  New  Englander  might  easily  raise  all  his  own 
breadstuff s  in  this  land  of  rye  and  Indian  corn,  and  not 
/•  depend  on  distant  and  fluctuating  markets  for  them. 
Yet  so  far  are  we  from  simplicity  and  independence 
that,  in  Concord,  fresh  and  sweet  meal  is  rarely  sold  in 
the  shops,  and  hominy  and  corn  in  a  still  coarser  form  are 
hardly  used  by  any.  For  the  most  part  the  farmer  gives 
to  his  cattle  and  hogs  the  grain  of  his  own  producing, 
and  buys  flour,  which  is  at  least  no  more  wholesome,  at 
a  greater  cost,  at  the  store.  I  saw  that  I  could  easily 


ECONOMY  71 

raise  my  bushel  or  two  of  rye  and  Indian  corn,  for  the 
former  will  grow  on  the  poorest  land,  and  the  latter  does 
not  require  the  best,  and  grind  them  in  a  hand-mill,  and 
so  do  without  rice  and  pork;  and  if  I  must  have  some 
concentrated  sweet,  I  found  by  experiment  that  I  could 
make  a  very  good  molasses  either  of  pumpkins  or  beets, 
and  I  knew  that  I  needed  only  to  set  out  a  few  maples 
to  obtain  it  more  easily  still,  and  while  these  were  grow 
ing  I  could  use  various  substitutes  beside  those  which  I 
have  named.  "  For,"  as  the  Forefathers  sang,  - 

"we  can  make  liquor  to  sweeten  our  lips 
Of  pumpkins  and  parsnips  and  walnut-tree  chips." 

Finally,  as  for  salt,  that  grossest  of  groceries,  to  obtain 
this  might  be  a  fit  occasion  for  a  visit  to  the  seashore, 
or,  if  I  did  without  it  altogether,  I  should  probably  drink 
the  less  water.  I  do  not  learn  that  the  Indians  ever 
troubled  themselves  to  go  after  it. 

Thus  I  could  avoid  all  trade  and  barter,  so  far  as  my 
food  was  concerned,  and  having  a  shelter  already,  it 
would  only  remain  to  get  clothing  and  fuel.  The  panta 
loons  which  I  now  wear  were  woven  in  a  farmer's 
family,  —  thank  Heaven  there  is  so  much  virtue  still  in 
man ;  for  I  think  the  fall  from  the  farmer  to  the  opera 
tive  as  great  and  memorable  as  that  from  the  man  to  the 
farmer ;  —  and  in  a  new  country,  fuel  is  an  encum 
brance.  As  for  a  habitat,  if  I  were  not  permitted  still  to 
squat,  I  might  purchase  one  acre  at  the  same  price  for 
which  the  land  I  cultivated  was  sold  —  namely,  eight 
dollars  and  eight  cents.  But  as  it  was,  I  considered  that 
I  enhanced  the  value  of  the  land  by  squatting  on  it. 


72  WALDEN 

There  is  a  certain  class  of  unbelievers  who  sometimes 
ask  me  such  questions  as,  if  I  think  that  I  can  live  on 
vegetable  food  alone;  and  to  strike  at  the  root  of  the 
matter  at  once,  —  for  the  root  is  faith,  —  I  am  accus 
tomed  to  answer  such,  that  I  can  live  on  board  nails.  If 
they  cannot  understand  that,  they  cannot  understand 
much  that  I  have  to  say.  For  my  part,  I  am  glad  to  hear 
of  experiments  of  this  kind  being  tried ;  as  that  a  young 
man  tried  for  a  fortnight  to  live  on  hard,  raw  corn  on 
the  ear,  using  his  teeth  for  all  mortar.  The  squirrel  tribe 
tried  the  same  and  succeeded.  The  human  race  is  in 
terested  in  these  experiments,  though  a  few  old  women 
who  are  incapacitated  for  them,  or  who  own  their  thirds 
in  mills,  may  be  alarmed. 

My  furniture,  part  of  which  I  made  myself,  —  and  the 
rest  cost  me  nothing  of  which  I  have  not  rendered  an  ac 
count, —  consisted  of  a  bed,  a  table,  a  desk,  three  chairs, 
a  looking-glass  three  inches  in  diameter,  a  pair  of  tongs 
and  andirons,  a  kettle,  a  skillet,  and  a  frying-pan,  a 
dipper,  a  wash-bowl,  two  knives  and  forks,  three  plates, 
one  cup,  one  spoon,  a  jug  for  oil,  a  jug  for  molasses,  and 
a  japanned  lamp.  None  is  so  poor  that  he  need  sit  on  a 
pumpkin.  That  is  shiftlessness.  There  is  a  plenty  of 
such  chairs  as  I  like  best  in  the  village  garrets  to  be  had 
for  taking  them  away.  Furniture !  Thank  God,  I  can 
sit  and  I  can  stand  without  the  aid  of  a  furniture  ware 
house.  What  man  but  a  philosopher  would  not  be 
ashamed  to  see  his  furniture  packed  in  a  cart  and  go 
ing  up  country  exposed  to  the  light  of  heaven  and  the 
eyes  of  men,  a  beggarly  account  of  empty  boxes  ?  That 


ECONOMY  73 

is  Spaulding's  furniture.  I  could  never  tell  from  in 
specting  such  a  load  whether  it  belonged  to  a  so-called 
rich  man  or  a  poor  one;  the  owner  always  seemed 
poverty-stricken.  Indeed,  the  more  you  have  of  such 
things  the  poorer  you  are.  Each  load  looks  as  if  it  con 
tained  the  contents  of  a  dozen  shanties;  and  if  one 
shanty  is  poor,  this  is  a  dozen  times  as  poor.  Pray,  for 
what  do  we  move  ever  but  to  get  rid  of  our  furniture, 
our  exuviae;  at  last  to  go  from  this  world  to  another 
newly  furnished,  and  leave  this  to  be  burned  ?  It  is  the 
same  as  if  all  these  traps  were  buckled  to  a  man's  belt, 
and  he  could  not  move  over  the  rough  country  where 
our  lines  are  cast  without  dragging  them,  —  dragging 
his  trap.  He  was  a  lucky  fox  that  left  his  tail  in  the  trap. 
(The  muskrat  will  gnaw  his  third  leg  off  to  be  free!yNo 
wonder  man  has  lost  his  elasticity.  How  often  he"  is  at 
a  dead  set !  "  Sir,  if  I  may  be  so  bold,  what  do  you  mean 
by  a  dead  set  ? "  If  you  are  a  seer,  whenever  you  meet 
a  man  you  will  see  all  that  he  owns,  ay,  and  much  that 
he  pretends  to  disown,  behind  him,  even  to  his  kitchen 
furniture  and  all  the  trumpery  which  he  saves  and  will 
not  burn,  and  he  will  appear  to  be  harnessed  to  it  and 
making  what  headway  he  can.  I  think  that  the  man  is 
at  a  dead  set  who  has  got  through  a  knot-hole  or  gate 
way  where  his  sledge  load  of  furniture  cannot  follow 
him.  I  cannot  but  feel  compassion  when  I  hear  some 
trig,  compact-looking  man,  seemingly  free,  all  girded 
and  ready,  speak  of  his  "furniture,"  as  whether  it  is 
insured  or  not.  "  But  what  shall  I  do  with  my  furniture  ?  " 
My  gay  butterfly  is  entangled  in  a  spider's  web  then. 
Even  those  who  seem  for  a  long  while  not  to  have  any, 


74  WALDEN 

if  you  inquire  more  narrowly  you  will  find  have  some 
stored  in  somebody's  barn.  I  look  upon  England  to 
day  as  an  old  gentleman  who  is  travelling  with  a  great 
deal  of  baggage,  trumpery  which  has  accumulated  from 
long  housekeeping,  which  he  has  not  the  courage  to 
burn;  great  trunk,  little  trunk,  bandbox,  and  bundle. 
Throw  away  the  first  three  at  least.  It  would  surpass 
the  powers  of  a  well  man  nowadays  to  take  up  his  bed 
and  walk,  and  I  should  certainly  advise  a  sick  one  to 
lay  down  his  bed  and  run.  When  I  have  met  an  immi 
grant  tottering  under  a  bundle  which  contained  his  all, 
—  looking  like  an  enormous  wen  which  had  grown  out 
of  the  nape  of  his  neck,  —  I  have  pitied  him,  not  because 
that  was  his  all,  but  because  he  had  all  that  to  carry.  If 
I  have  got  to  drag  my  trap,  I  will  take  care  that  it  be 
a  light  one  and  do  not  nip  me  in  a  vital  part.  But 
perchance  it  would  be  wisest  never  to  put  one's  paw 
into  it. 

I  would  observe,  by  the  way,  that  it  costs  me  nothing 
for  curtains,  for  I  have  no  gazers  to  shut  out  but  the 
sun  and  moon,  and  I  am  willing  that  they  should  look 
in.  The  moon  will  not  sour  milk  nor  taint  meat  of  mine, 
nor  will  the  sun  injure  my  furniture  or  fade  my  carpet; 
and  if  he  is  sometimes  too  warm  a  friend,  I  find  it  still 
better  economy  to  retreat  behind  some  curtain  which 
nature  has  provided,  than  to  add  a  single  item  to  the 
details  of  housekeeping.  A  lady  once  offered  me  a  mat, 
but  as  I  had  no  room  to  spare  within  the  house,  nor 
time  to  spare  within  or  without  to  shake  it,  I  declined 
it,  preferring  to  wipe  my  feet  on  the  sod  before  my  door. 
It  is  best  to  avoid  the  beginnings  of  evil. 


ECONOMY  75 

Not  long  since  I  was  present  at  the  auction  of  a  dea 
con's  effects,  for  his  life  had  not  been  ineffectual :  — 

"The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them." 

As  usual,  a  great  proportion  was  trumpery  which  had 
begun  to  accumulate  in  his  father's  day.  Among  the 
rest  was  a  dried  tapeworm.  And  now,  after  lying  half  a 
century  in  his  garret  and  other  dust  holes,  these  things 
were  not  burned ;  instead,  of  a  bonfire,  or  purifying  de 
struction  of  them,  there  ^as  an  auction,  or  increasing 
of  them.  The  neighbors  eagerly  collected  to  view  them, 
bought  them  all,  and  carefully  transported  them  to 
their  garrets  and  dust  holes,  to  lie  there  till  their  estates 
are  settled,  when  they  will  start  again.  When  a  man 
dies  he  kicks  the  dust. 

The  customs  of  some  savage  nations  might,  per 
chance,  be  profitably  imitated  by  us,  for  they  at  least 
go  through  the  semblance  of  casting  their  slough  an 
nually;  they  have  the  idea  of  the  thing,  whether  they 
have  the  reality  or  not.  Would  it  not  be  well  if  we  were 
to  celebrate  such  a  "busk,"  or  "feast  of  first  fruits," 
as  Bartram  describes  to  have  been  the  custom  of  the 
Mucclasse  Indians  ?  "  When  a  town  celebrates  the 
busk,"  says  he,  "having  previously  provided  them 
selves  with  new  clothes,  new  pots,  pans,  and  other 
household  utensils  and  furniture,  they  collect  all  their 
worn  out  clothes  and  other  despicable  things,  sweep 
and  cleanse  their  houses,  squares,  and  the  whole  town, 
of  their  filth,  which  with  all  the  remaining  grain  and 
other  old  provisions  they  cast  together  into  one  com 
mon  heap,  and  consume  it  with  fire.  After  having  taken 


76  WALDEN 

medicine,  and  fasted  for  three  days,  all  the  fire  in  the 
town  is  extinguished.  During  this  fast  they  abstain 
from  the  gratification  of  every  appetite  and  passion 
whatever.  A  general  amnesty  is  proclaimed;  all  male 
factors  may  return  to  their  town." 

"  On  the  fourth  morning,  the  high  priest,  by  rubbing 
dry  wood  together,  produces  new  fire  in  the  public 
square,  from  whence  every  habitation  in  the  town  is 
supplied  with  the  new  and  pure  flame." 

They  then  feast  on  the  new  corn  and  fruits,  and  dance 
and  sing  for  three  days,  "  and  the  four  following  days 
they  receive  visits  and  rejoice  with  their  friends  from 
neighboring  towns  who  have  in  like  manner  purified 
and  prepared  themselves." 

The  Mexicans  also  practised  a  similar  purification 
at  the  end  of  every  fifty-two  years,  in  the  belief  that  it 
was  time  for  the  world  to  come  to  an  end. 

I  have  scarcely  heard  of  a  truer  sacrament,  that  is,  as 
the  dictionary  defines  it,  "outward  and  visible  sign  of 
an  inward  and  spiritual  grace,"  than  this,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  they  were  originally  inspired  directly 
from  Heaven  to  do  thus,  though  they  have  no  Biblical 
record  of  the  revelation. 

For  more  than  five  years  I  maintained  myself  thus 
solely  by  the  labor  of  my  hands,  and  I  found  that,  by 
working  about  six  weeks  in  a  year,  I  could  meet  all  the 
expenses  of  living.  The  whole  of  my  winters,  as  well  as 
most  of  my  summers,  I  had  free  and  clear  for  study.  I 
have  thoroughly  tried  school-keeping,  and  found  that 
my  expenses  were  in  proportion,  or  rather  out  of  pro- 


%        ECONOMY  77 

portion,  to  my  income,  for  I  was  obliged  to  dress  and 
train,  not  to  say  think  and  believe,  accordingly,  and  I 
lost  my  time  into  the  bargain.  As  I  did  not  teach  for  the 
good  of  my  fellow-men,  but  simply  for  a  livelihood,  this 
was  a  failure.  I  have  tried  trade;  but  I  found  that  it 
would  take  ten  years  to  get  under  way  in  that,  and  that 
then  I  should  probably  be  on  my  way  to  the  devil.  I  was 
actually  afraid  that  I  might  by  that  time  be  doing  what 
is  called  a  good  business.  When  formerly  I  was  looking 
about  to  see  what  I  could  do  for  a  living,  some  sad  ex 
perience  in  conforming  to  the  wishes  of  friends  being 
fresh  in  my  mind  to  tax  my  ingenuity,  I  thought  often 
and  seriously  of  picking  huckleberries;  that  surely  I 
could  do,  and  its  small  profits  might  suffice,  —  for  my 
greatest  skill  has  been  to  want  but  little,  —  so  little  capi 
tal  it  required,  so  little  distraction  from  my  wonted 
moods,  I  foolishly  thought.  While  my  acquaintances 
went  unhesitatingly  into  trade  or  the  professions,  I  con 
templated  this  occupation  as  most  like  theirs;  ranging 
the  hills  all  summer  to  pick  the  berries  which  came  in 
my  way,  and  thereafter  carelessly  dispose  of  them ;  so, 
to  keep  the  flocks  of  Admetus.  I  also  dreamed  that  I 
might  gather  the  wild  herbs,  or  carry  evergreens  to  such 
villagers  as  loved  to  be  reminded  of  the  woods,  even 
to  the  city,  by  hay-cart  loads.  But  I  have  since  learned 
that  trade  curses  everything  it  handles ;  and  though  you 
trade  in  messages  from  heaven,  the  whole  curse  of  trade 
attaches  to  the  business. 

As  I  preferred  some  things  to  others,  and  especially 
valued  my  freedom,  as  I  could  fare  hard  and  yet  succeed 
well,  I  did  not  wish  to  spend  my  time  in  earning  rich 


78  tfii^-  WALDEN 


^%  carpets  or  other  fine  furniture,  or  delicate  cookery,  or  a 
house  in  the  Grecian  or  the  Gothic  style  just  yet.  If 
*  Uhere  are  any  to  whom  it  is  no  interruption  to  acquire 
\  these  things,  and  who  know  how  to  use  them  when  ac- 
i|uired,  I  relinquish  to  them  the  pursuit.  Some  are  "  in 
dustrious,"  and  appear  to  love  labor  for  its  own  sake, 
or  perhaps  because  it  keeps  them  out  of  worse  mischief; 
to  such  I  have  at  present  nothing  to  say.  Those  who 
would  not  know  what  to  do  with  more  leisure  than  they 
now  enjoy,  I  might  advise  to  work  twice  as  hard  as  they 
do,  —  work  till  they  pay  for  themselves,  and  get  their 
free  papers.  For  myself  I  found  that  the  occupation 
of  a  day-laborer  was  the  most  independent  of  any,  es 
pecially  as  it  required  only  thirty  or  forty  days  in  a 
year  to  support  one.  The  laborer's  day  ends  with  the 
going  down  of  the  sun,  and  he  is  then  free  to  devote 
himself  to  his  chosen  pursuit,  independent  of  his  labor; 
but  his  employer,  who  speculates  from  month  to  month, 
has  no  respite  from  one  end  of  the  year  to  the  other. 

In  short,  I  am  convinced,  both  by  faith  and  experi 
ence,  that  to  maintain  one's  self  on  this  earth  .is  not  a 
hardship  but  a  pastime,  if  we  will  live  simply  and  wisely; 
as  the  pursuits  of  the  simpler  nations  are  still  the  sports 
of  the  more  artificial.  It  is  not  necessary  that  a  man 
should  earn  his  living  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  unless 
he  sweats  easier  than  I  do. 

One  young  man  of  my  acquaintance,  who  has  in 
herited  some  acres,  told  me  that  he  thought  he  should 
i  live  as  I  did,  if  he  had  the  means. \L  would  not  have  any 
"V*  one  adopt  my  mode  of  living  on  any  account ;  for,  beside 
\  that  before  he  has  fairly  learned  it  I  may  have  found 


ECONOMY  79 

out  another  for  myself,  I  desire  that  there  may  be  as 
many  different  persons  in  the  world  as  possible;  but  I 
would  have  each  one  be  very  careful  to  find  out  and 
pursue  his  own  way,  and  not  his  father's  or  his  mother's 
or  his  neighbor's  instead.  The  youth  may  build  or  plant 
or  sail,  only  let  him  not  be  hindered  from  doing  that 
which  he  tells  me  he  would  like  to  do.  It  is  by  a  mathe 
matical  point  only  that  we  are  wise,  as  the  sailor  or  the 
fugitive  slave  keeps  the  p^lestar  in  his  eye;  but  that  is 
sufficient  guidance  for  all  our  life.  We  may  not  arrive 
at  our  port  within  a  calculable  period,  but  we  would 
preserve  the  true  course. 

Undoubtedly,  in  this  case,  what  is  true  for  one  is  truer 
still  for  a  thousand,  as  a  large  house  is  not  proportionally 
more  expensive  than  a  small  one,  since  one  roof  may 
cover,  one  cellar  underlie,  and  one  wall  separate  several 
apartments.  But  for  my  part,  I  preferred  the  solitary 
dwelling.  Moreover,  it  will  commonly  be  cheaper  to 
build  the  whole  yourself  than  to  convince  another  of  the 
advantage  of  the  common  wall;  and  when  you  have 
done  this,  the  common  partition,  to  be  much  cheaper, 
must  be  a  thin  one,  and  that  other  may  prove  a  bad 
neighbor,  and  also  not  keep  his  side  in  repair.  The  only 
cooperation  which  is  commonly  possible  is  exceedingly 
partial  and  superficial ;  and  what  little  true  cooperation 
there  is,  is  as  if  it  were  not,  being  a  harmony  inaudible 
to  men.  If  a  man  has  faith,  he  will  cooperate  with  equal 
faith  everywhere ;  if  he  has  not  faith,  he  will  continue  to 
live  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  whatever  company  he  is 
joined  to.  To  cooperate  in  the  highest  as  well  as  the 
lowest  sense,  means  to  get  our  living  together.  I  heard  it 


80  WALDEN 

proposed  lately  that  two  young  men  should  travel  to 
gether  over  the  world,  the  one   without  money,  earn 
ing  his  means  as  he  went,  before  the  mast  and  behind 
the  plow,  the  other  carrying  a  bill  of  exchange  in  his 
pocket.    It  was  easy  to  see  that  they  could  not  long  be 
companions  or  cooperate,  since  one  would  not  operate 
at  all.    They  would  part  at  the  first  interesting  crisis  in 
their  adventures.  Above  all,  as  I  have  implied,  the  man    ^ 
who  goes  alone  can  start  totday;   but  he  who  travels^ 
with  another  must  wait  till  that  other  is  ready,  and  it  _ 
may  be  a  long  time  before  they  get  off, 

>j  But  all  this  is  very  selfish,  I  have  heard  some  of  my 
my  townsmen  say.  I  confess  that  I  have  hitherto  indulged 
r* A  verv  l^tle  in  philanthropic  enterprises.  I  have  made 
(  |/£\s°me  sacrifices  to  a  sense  of  duty,  and  among  others  have 
sacrificed  this  pleasure  also.  There  are  those  who  have 
used  all  their  arts  to  persuade  me  to  undertake  the  sup 
port  of|Some  poor  family  in  the  town ;  and  if  I  had  no 
thing  to  do  —  for  the  devil  finds  employment  for  the  idle 
—  I  might  try  my  hand  at  some  such  pastime  as  that. 
However,  when  I  have  thought  to  indulge  myself  in  this 
respect,  and  lay  their  Heaven  under  an  obligation  by 
maintaining  certain  poor  persons  in  all  respects  as  com 
fortably  as  I  maintain  myself,  and  have  even  ventured 
so  far  as  to  make  them  the  offer,  they  have  one  and  all 
unhesitatingly  preferred  to  remain  poor.  While  my 
townsmen  and  women  are  devoted  in  so  many  ways  to 
the  good  of  their  fellows,  I  trust  that  one  at  least  may  be 
spared  to  other  and  less  humane  pursuits.  You  must 
have  a  genius  for  charity  as  well  as  for  anything  else.  As 


ECONOMY  SI 

for  Doing-good,  that  is  one  of  the  professions  which  are 
full.  Moreover,  I  have  tried  it  fairly,  and,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  am  satisfied  that  it  does  not  agree  with  my 
constitution.  Probably  I  should  not  consciously  and 
deliberately  forsake  my  particular  calling  to  do  the  good 
which  society  demands  of  me,  to  save  the  universe  from 
annihilation;  and  I  believe  that  a  like  but  infinitely 
greater  steadfastness  elsewhere  is  all  that  now  preserves 
it.  But  I  would  not  stand  between  any  man  and  his 
genius ;  and  to  him  who  does  this  work,  which  I  decline, 
with  his  whole  heart  and  soul  and  life,  I  would  say, 
Persevere,  even  if  the  world  call  it  doing  evil,  as  it  is 
most  likely  mey  will. 

I  am  far  from  supposing  that  my  case  is  a  peculiar 
one ;  no  doubt  many  of  my  readers  would  make  a  simi 
lar  defence.  At  doing  something,  —  I  will  not  engage 
that  my  neighbors  shall  pronounce  it  good,  —  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  I  should  be  a  capital  fellow  to  hire; 
but  what  that  is,  it  is  for  my  employer  to  find  out.  What 
good  I  do,  in  the  common  sense  of  that  word,  must  be 
aside  from  my  main  path,  and  for  the  most  part  wholly 
unintended.  Men  say,  practically,  Begin  where  you  are 
and  such  as  you  are,  without  aiming  mainly  to  become 
of  more  worth,  and  with  kindness  aforethought  go  about 
doing  good.  If  I  were  to  preach  at  all  in  this  strain,  I 
should  say  rather,  Set  about  being  good.  As  if  the  sun 
should  stop  when  he  had  kindled  his  fires  up  to  the  splen 
dor  of  a  moon  or  a  star  of  the  sixth  magnitude,  and  go 
about  like  a  Robin  Goodfellow,  peeping  in  at  every  cot 
tage  window,  inspiring  lunatics,  and  tainting  meats,  and 
making  darkness  visible,  instead  of  steadily  increasing  his 


8fc  WALDEN 

genial  heat  and  beneficence  till  he  is  of  such  brightness 
that  no  mortal  can  look  him  in  the  face,  and  then,  and 
in  the  meanwhile  too,  going  about  the  world  in  his  own 
orbit,  doing  it  good,  or  rather,  as  a  truer  philosophy  has 
discovered,  the  world  going  about  him  getting  good. 
When  Phaeton,  wishing  to  prove  his  heavenly  birth  by 
his  beneficence,  had  the  sun's  chariot  but  one  day,  and 
drove  out  of  the  beaten  track,  he  burned  several  blocks 
of  houses  in  the  lower  streets  of  heaven,  and  scorched  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  and  dried  up  every  spring,  and  made 
the  great  desert  of  Sahara,  till  at  length  Jupiter  hurled 
him  headlong  to  the  earth  with  a  thunderbolt,  and  the 
sun,  through  grief  at  his  death,  did  not  shine  for  a  year. 
There  is  no  odor  so  bad  as  that  which  arises  from  good 
ness  tainted.  It  is  human,  it  is  divine,  carrion.  If  I  knew 
for  a  certainty  that  a  man  was  coming  to  my  house  with 
the  conscious  design  of  doing  me  good,  I  should  run  for 
my  life,  as  from  that  dry  and  parching  wind  of  the  Afri 
can  deserts  called  the  simoom,  which  fills  the  mouth  and 
nose  and  ears  and  eyes  with  dust  till  you  are  suffocated, 
for  fear  that  I  should  get  some  of  his  good  done  to  me, 
—  some  of  its  virus  mingled  with  my  blood.  No,  —  in 
this  case  I  would  rather  suffer  evil  the  natural  way.  A 
man  is  not  a  good  man  to  me  because  he  will  feed  me  if 
I  should  be  starving,  or  warm  me  if  I  should  be  freezing, 
or  pull  me  out  of  a  ditch  if  I  should  ever  fall  into  one.  I 
can  find  you  a  Newfoundland  dog  that  will  do  as  much. 
Philanthropy  is  not  love  for  one's  fellow-man  in  the 
broadest  sense.  Howard  was  no  doubt  an  exceedingly 
kind  and  worthy  man  in  his  way,  and  has  his  reward; 
but,  comparatively  speaking,  what  are  a  hundred  How- 


ECONOMY  83 

ards  to  us,  if  their  philanthropy  do  not  help  us  in  our 
best  estate,  when  we  are  most  worthy  to  be  helped  ?  I 
never  heard  of  a  philanthropic  meeting  in  which  it  was 
sincerely  proposed  to  do  any  good  to  me,  or  the  like 
of  me. 

The  Jesuits  were  quite  balked  by  those  Indians  who, 
being  burned  at  the  stake,  suggested  new  modes  of  tor 
ture  to  their  tormentors.  Being  superior  to  physical  suf 
fering,  it  sometimes  chanced  that  they  were  superior  to 
any  consolation  which  the  missionaries  could  offer;  and 
the  law  to  do  as  you  would  be  done  by  fell  with  less  per 
suasiveness  on  the  ears  of  those  who,  for  their  part,  did 
not  care  how  they  were  done  by,  who  loved  their  ene 
mies  after  a  new  fashion,  and  came  very  near  freely 
forgiving  them  all  they  did. 

Be  sure  that  you  give  the  poor  the  aid  they  most  need, 
though  it  be  your  example  which  leaves  them  far  behind. 
If  you  give  money,  spend  yourself  with  it,  and  do  not 
merely  abandon  it  to  them.  We  make  curious  mistakes 
sometimes.  Often  the  poor  man  is  not  so  cold  and  hun 
gry  as  he  is  dirty  and  ragged  and  gross.  It  is  partly  his 
taste,  and  not  merely  his  misfortune.  If  you  give  him 
money,  he  will  perhaps  buy  more  rags  with  it.  I  was 
wont  to  pity  the  clumsy  Irish  laborers  who  cut  ice  on  the 
pond,  in  such  mean  and  ragged  clothes,  while  I  shivered 
in  my  more  tidy  and  somewhat  more  fashionable  gar 
ments,  till,  one  bitter  cold  day,  one  who  had  slipped  into 
the  water  came  to  my  house  to  warm  him,  and  I  saw 
him  strip  off  three  pairs  of  pants  and  two  pairs  of  stock 
ings  ere  he  got  down  to  the  skin,  though  they  were  dirty 
and  ragged  enough,  it  is  true,  and  that  he  could  afford 


84  WALDEN 

to  refuse  the  extra  garments  which  I  offered  him,  he  had 
so  many  intra  ones.  This  ducking  was  the  very  thing  he 
needed.  Then  I  began  to  pity  myself,  and  I  saw  that  it 
would  be  a  greater  charity  to  bestow  on  me  a  flannel 
shirt  than  a  whole  slop-shop  on  him.  There  are  a  thou 
sand  hacking  at  the  branches  of  evil  to  one  who  is  strik 
ing  at  the  root,  and  it  may  be  that  he  who  bestows  the 
largest  amount  of  time  and  money  on  the  needy  is  doing 
the  most  by  his  mode'  of  life  to  produce  that  misery  which 
he  strives  in  vain  to  relieve.  It  is  the  pious  slave-breeder 
devoting  the  proceeds  of  every  tenth  slave  to  buy  a  Sun 
day's  liberty  for  the  rest.  Some  show  their  kindness  to 
the  poor  by  employing  them  in  their  kitchens.  Would 
they  not  be  kinder  if  they  employed  themselves  there  ? 
You  boast  of  spending  a  tenth  part  of  your  income  in 
charity;  maybe  you  should  spend  the  nine  tenths  so, 
and  done  with  it.  Society  recovers  only  a  tenth  part  of 
the  property  then.  Is  this  owing  to  the  generosity  of  him 
in  whose  possession  it  is  found,  or  to  the  remissness  of 
the  officers  of  justice  ? 

Philanthropy  is  almost  the  only  virtue  which  is  suf- 
'  ficiently  appreciated  by  mankind.  Nay,  it  is  greatly 
overrated;  and  it  is  our  selfishness  which  overrates  it. 
A  robust  poor  man,  one  sunny  day  here  in  Concord, 
praised  a  fellow-townsman  to  me,  because,  as  he  said, 
he  was  kind  to  the  poor;  meaning  himself.  The  kind 
uncles  and  aunts  of  the  race  are  more  esteemed  than 
its  true  spiritual  fathers  and  mothers.  I  once  heard  a 
reverend  lecturer  on  England,  a  man  of  learning  and 
intelligence,  after  enumerating  her  scientific,  literary, 
and  political  worthies,  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Crom- 


ECONOMY  S^ 

well,  Milton,  Newton,  and  others,  speak  next  of  her 
Christian  heroes,  whom,  as  if  his  profession  required  it 
of  him,  he  elevated  to  a  place  far  above  all  the  rest,  as 
the  greatest  of  the  great.  They  were  Penn,  Howard, 
and  Mrs.  Fry.  Every  one  must  feel  the  falsehood  and 
cant  of  this.  The  last  were  not  England's  best  men  and 
women;  only,  perhaps,  her  best  philanthropists. 

I  would  not  subtract  anything  from  the  praise  that 
is  due  to  philanthropy,  but  merely  demand  justice  for 
all  who  by  their  lives  and  works  are  a  blessing  to  man 
kind.  I  do  not  value  chiefly  a  man's  uprightness  and 
benevolence,  which  are,  as  it  were,  his  stem  and  leaves. 
Those  plants  of  whose  greenness  withered  we  make 
herb  tea  for  the  sick  serve  but  a  humble  use,  and  are 
most  employed  by  quacks.  I  want  the  flower  and  fruit 
of  a  man ;  that  some  fragrance  be  wafted  over  from  him 
to  me,  and  some  ripeness  flavor  our  intercourse.  His 
goodness  must  not  be  a  partial  and  transitory  act,  but 
a  constant  superfluity,  which  costs  him  nothing  and  of 
which  he  is  unconscious.  This  is  a  charity  that  hides  a 
multitude  of  sins.  The  philanthropist  too  often  sur 
rounds  mankind  with  the  remembrance  of  his  own  cast- 
off  griefs  as  an  atmosphere,  and  calls  it  sympathy.  We 
should  impart  our  courage,  and  not  our  despair,  our 
health  and  ease,  and  not  our  disease,  and  take  care  that 
this  does  not  spread  by^contagion.  From  what  southern 
plains  comes  up  the  voice  of  wailing  ?  Under  what  lati 
tudes  reside  the  heathen  to  whom  we  would  send  light  ? 
Who  is  that  intemperate  and  brutal  man  whom  we  would 
redeem  ?  If  anything  ail  a  man,  so  that  he  does  not  per 
form  his  functions,  if  he  have  a  pain  in  his  bowels  even, 


S4  WALDEN 

—  for  that  is  the  seat  of  sympathy,  —  he  forthwith  sets 
about  reforming  —  the  world.  Being  a  microcosm  him 
self,  he  discovers  —  and  it  is  a  true  discovery,  and  he 
is  the  man  to  make  it  —  that  the  world  has  been  eat 
ing  green  apples;  to  his  eyes,  in  fact,  the  globe  itself  is 
a  great  green  apple,  which  there  is  danger  awful  to  think 
of  that  the  children  of  men  will  nibble  before  it  is  ripe ; 
and  straightway  his  drastic  philanthropy  seeks  out  the 
Esquimau  and  the  Patagonian,  and  embraces  the  popu 
lous  Indian  and  Chinese  villages;  and  thus,  by  a  few 
years  of  philanthropic  activity,  the  powers  in  the  mean 
while  using  him  for  their  own  ends,  no  doubt,  he  cures 
himself  of  his  dyspepsia,  the  globe  acquires  a  faint  blush 
on  one  or  both  of  its  cheeks,  as  if  it  were  beginning  to 
be  ripe,  and  life  loses  its  crudity  and  is  once  more  sweet 
and  wholesome  to  live.  I  never  dreamed  of  any  enor 
mity  greater  than  I  have  committed.  I  never  knew,  and 
never  shall  know,  a  worse  man  than  myself.  UJL/a  ; 

I  believe  that  what  so  saddens  the  reformer  is  nofhis 
sympathy  with  his  fellows  in  distress,  but,  though  he  be 
the  holiest  son  of  God,  is  his  private  ail.  Let  this  be 
righted,  let  the  spring  come  to  him,  the  morning  rise 
over  his  couch,  and  he  will  forsake  his  generous  com 
panions  without  apology.  My  excuse  for  not  lecturing 
against  the  use  of  tobacco  is,  that  I  never  chewed  it, 
that  is  a  penalty  which  reformed  tobacco-chewers  have 
to  pay;  though  there  are  thingsTpough  I  have  chewed 
which  I  could  lecture  against.  If  you  should  ever  be 
betrayed  into  any  of  these  philanthropies,  do  not  let  your 
left  hand  know  what  your  right  hand  does,  for  it  is  not 
worth  knowing.  Rescue  the  drowning  and  tie  your  shoe- 


ECONOMY  87 

strings.  Take  your  time,  and    set    about   some   free 
labor. 

Our  manners  have  been  corrupted  by  communication 
with  the  saints.  Our  hymn-books  resound  with  a  me 
lodious  cursing  of  God  and  enduring  Him  forever.  One 
would  say  that  even  the  prophets  and  redeemers  had 
rather  consoled  the  fears  than  confirmed  the  hopes  of 
man.  There  is  nowhere  recorded  a  simple  and  irrepressi 
ble  satisfaction  with  the  gift  of  life,  any  memorable 
praise  of  God.  All  health  and  success  does  me  good, 
however  far  off  and  withdrawn  it  may  appear;  all  dis 
ease  and  failure  helps  to  make  me  sad  and  does  me  evil, 
however  much  sympathy  it  may  have  with  me  or  I  with 
it.  If,  then,  we  would  indeed  restore  mankind  by  truly 
Indian,  botanic,  magnetic,  or  natural  means,  let  us  first 
be  as  simple  and  well  as  Nature  ourselves,  dispel  the 
clouds  which  hang  over  our  own  brows,  and  take  up  a 
little  life  into  our  pores.  Do  not  stay  to  be  an  overseer 
of  the  poor,  but  endeavor  to  become  one  of  the  worthies 
of  the  world. 

I  read  in  the  Gulistan,  or  Flower  Garden,  of  Sheik 
Sadi  of  Shiraz,  that  "they  asked  a  wise  man,  saying: 
Of  the  many  celebrated  trees  which  the  Most  High  God 
has  created  lofty  and  umbrageous,  they  call  none  jizad, 
or  free,  excepting  the  cypress,  which  bears  no  fruit; 
what  mystery  is  there  in  this  ?  He  replied :  Each  has 
its  appropriate  produce,  and  appointed  season,  during 
the  continuance  of  which  it  is  fresh  and  blooming,  and 
during  their  absence  dry  and  withered;  to  neither  of 
which  states  is  the  cypress  exposed,  being  always  flour 
ishing  ;  and  of  this  nature  are  the  azads,  or  religious 


88  WALDEN 

independents.  — Fix  not  thy  heart  on  that  which  is  tran 
sitory;  for  the  Dijlah,  or  Tigris,  will  continue  to  flow 
through  Bagdad  after  the  race  of  caliphs  is  extinct :  if 
thy  hand  has  plenty,  be  liberal  as  the  date  tree ;  but  if  it 
affords  nothing  to  give  away,  be  an  azad,  or  free  man, 
like  the  cypress." 


COMPLEMENTAL  VERSES 

THE  PRETENSIONS   OF  POVERTY 

Thou  dost  presume  too  much,  poor  needy  wretch, 

To  claim  a  station  in  the  firmament 

Because  thy  humble  cottage,  or  thy  tub, 

Nurses  some  lazy  or  pedantic  virtue 

In  the  cheap  sunshine  or  by  shady  springs, 

With  roots  and  pot-herbs;  where  thy  right  hand, 

Tearing  those  humane  passions  from  the  mind, 

Upon  whose  stocks  fair  blooming  virtues  flourish, 

Degradeth  nature,  and  benumbeth  sense, 

And,  Gorgon-like,  turns  active  men  to  stone. 

We  not  require  the  dull  society 

Of  your  necessitated  temperance, 

Or  that  unnatural  stupidity 

That  knows  nor  joy  nor  sorrow;  nor  your  forc'd 

Falsely  exalted  passive  fortitude 

Above  the  active.    This  low  abject  brood, 

That  fix  their  seats  in  mediocrity, 

Become  your  servile  minds;  but  we  advance 

Such  virtues  only  as  admit  excess, 

Brave,  bounteous  acts,  regal  magnificence, 

All-seeing  prudence,  magnanimity 

That  knows  no  bound,  and  that  heroic  virtue 

For  which  antiquity  hath  left  no  name, 

But  patterns  only,  such  as  Hercules, 

Achilles,  Theseus.    Back  to  thy  loath'd  cell; 

And  when  thou  seest  the  new  enlightened  sphere, 

Study  to  know  but  what  those  worthies  were. 

T.  CABEW 


II 


WHERE  I  LIVED,  AND  WHAT  I  LIVED 
FOR 

AT  a  certain  season  of  our  life  we  are  accustomed  to 
consider  every  spot  as  the  possible  site  of  a  house.  I 
have  thus  surveyed  the  country  on  every  side  within  a 
dozen  miles  of  where  I  live.  In  imagination  I  have  bought 
all  the  farms  in  succession,  for  all  were  to  be  bought,  and 
I  knew  their  price.  I  walked  over  each  farmer's  prem 
ises,  tasted  his  wild  apples,  discoursed  on  husbandry 
with  him,  took  his  farm  at  his  price,  at  any  price,  mort 
gaging  it  to  him  in  my  mind ;  even  put  a  higher  price  on 
it,  —  took  everything  but  a  jleed  of  it,  —  took  his  word 
for  his  deed,  for  I  dearly  love  to  talk,  —  cultivated  it, 
and  him  too  to  some  extent,  I  trust,  and  withdrew  when 
I  had  enjoyed  it  long  enough,  leaving  him  to  carry  it  on. 
This  experience  entitled  me  to  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
real-estate  broker  by  my  friends.  Wherever  I  sat,  there 
I  might  live,  and  the  landscape  radiated  from  me  ac 
cordingly.  What  is  a  house  but  a  sedes,  a  seat  ?  —  better 
if  a  country  seat.  I  discovered  many  a  site  for  a  house 
not  likely  to  be  soon  improved,  which  some  might  have 
thought  too  far  from  the  village,  but  to  my  eyes  the  vil 
lage  was  too  far  from  it.  Well,  there  I  might  live,  I  said ; 
and  there  I  did  live,  for  an  hour,  a  summer  and  a  winter 
life;  saw  how  I  could  let  the  years  run  off,  buffet  the 


WHERE   I   LIVED  91 

winter  through,  and  see  the  spring  come  in.  The  future 
inhabitants  of  this  region,  wherever  they  may  place 
their  houses,  may  be  sure  that  they  have  been  anticipated. 
An  afternoon  sufficed  to  lay  out  the  land  into  orchard, 
wood-lot,  and  pasture,  and  to  decide  what  fine  oaks  or 
pines  should  be  left  to  stand  before  the  door,  and  whence 
each  blasted  tree  could  be  seen  to  the  best  advantage; 
and  then  I  let  it  lie,  fallow  perchance,  If  or  a  man  is 
rich  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  things  which  he  can 
afford  to  let  aloneT]  a  *ttv«*t^-L4~  "/ 

My  imagination  carried  me  so  far  that  I  even  had  the 
refusal  of  several  farms,  —  the  refusal  was  all  I  wanted, 
—  but  I  never  got  my  fingers  burned  by  actual  posses 
sion.  The  nearest  that  I  came  to  actual  possession  was 
when  I  bought  the  Hollowell  place,  and  had  begun  to 
sort  my  seeds,  and  collected  materials  with  which  to 
make  a  wheelbarrow  to  carry  it  on  or  off  with;  but  be 
fore  the  owner  gave  me  a  deed  of  it,  his  wife  —  every 
man  has  such  a  wife  —  changed  her  mind  and  wished 
to  keep  it,  and  he  offered  me  ten  dollars  to  release  him. 
Now,  to  speak  the  truth,  I  had  but  ten  cents  in  the  world, 
and  it  surpassed  my  arithmetic  to  tell,  if  I  was  that  man 
who  had  ten  cents,  or  who  had  a  farm,  or  ten  dollars,  or 
all  together.  However,  I  let  him  keep  the  ten  dollars  and 
the  farm  too,  for  I  had  carried  it  far  enough ;  or  rather, 
to  be  generous,  I  sold  him  the  farm  for  just  what  I  gave 
for  it,  and,  as  he  was  not  a  rich  man,  made  him  a  pre 
sent  of  ten  dollars,  and  still  had  my  ten  cents,  and  seeds, 
and  materials  for  a  wheelbarrow  left.  I  found  thus  that 
I  had  been  a  rich  man  without  any  damage  to  my  pov 
erty.  But  I  retained  the  landscape,  and  I  have  since 


92  WALDEN 

annually  carried  off  what  it  yielded  without  a  wheelbar 
row.   With  respect  to  landscapes,  — 

"I  am  monarch  of  all  I  survey, 
My  right  there  is  none  to  dispute." 

I  have  frequently  seen  a  poet  withdraw,  having  en 
joyed  the  most  valuable  part  of  a  farm,  while  the  crusty 
farmer  supposed  that  he  had  got  a  few  wild  apples  only. 
Why,  the  owner  does  not  know  it  for  many  years  when  a 
poet  has  put  his  farm  in  rhyme,  the  most  admirable  kind 
of  invisible  fence,  has  fairly  impounded  it,  milked  it, 
skimmed  it,  and  got  all  the  cream,  and  left  the  farmer 
only  the  skimmed  milk. 

The  real  attractions  of  the  Hollowell  farm,  to  me, 
were:  its  complete  retirement,  being  about  two  miles 
from  the  village,  half  a  mile  from  the  nearest  neighbor, 
and  separated  from  the  highway  by  a  broad  field;  its 
bounding  on  the  river,  which  the  owner  said  protected 
it  by  its  fogs  from  frosts  in  the  spring,  though  that  was 
nothing  to  me;  the  gray  color  and  ruinous  state  of  the 
house  and  barn,  and  the  dilapidated  fences,  which  put 
such  an  interval  between  me  and  the  last  occupant;  the 
hollow  and  lichen-covered  apple  trees,  gnawed  by  rab 
bits,  showing  what  kind  of  neighbors  I  should  have ;  but 
above  all,  the  recollection  I  had  of  it  from  my  earliest 
voyages  up  the  river,  when  the  house  was  concealed  be 
hind  a  dense  grove  of  red  maples,  through  which  I  heard 
the  house-dog  bark.  I  was  in  haste  to  buy  it,  before  the 
proprietor  finished  getting  out  some  rocks,  cutting  down 
the  hollow  apple  trees,  and  grubbing  up  some  young 
birches  which  had  sprung  up  in  the  pasture,  or,  in  short, 
had  made  any  more  of  his  improvements.  To  enjoy 


WHERE  I  LIVED  95 

these  advantages  I  was  ready  to  carry  it  on ;  like  Atlas, 
to  take  the  world  on  my  shoulders,  —  I  never  heard 
what  compensation  he  received  for  that,  —  and  do  all 
those  things  which  hajl  no  other  motive  or  excuse  but 
that  I  might  pay  for  it  and  be  unmolested^  in  my  pos 
session  of  it ;  for  I  knew  all  the  while  that  it  would  yield 
the  most  abundant  crop  of  the  kind  I  wanted,  if  I  could 
only  afford  to  let  it  alone.  But  it  turned  out  as  I  have 
said. 

All  that  I  could  say,  then,  with  respect  to  farming  on 
a  large  scale  —  I  have  always  cultivated  a  garden  —  was, 
that  I  had  had  my  seeds  ready.  Many  think  that  seeds 
improve  with  age.  I  have  no  doubt  that  time  discrimi 
nates  between  the  good  and  the  bad ;  and  when  at  last  I 
shall  plant,  I  shall  be  less  likely  to  be  disappointed.  But  I 
would  say  to  my  fellows,  once  for  all,  As  long  as  possible 
live  free  and  uncommitted.  It  makes  but  little  difference 
whether  you  are  committed  to  a  farm  or  the  county  jail. 

Old  Cato,  whose  "  De  Re  Rustica  "  is  my  "  Cultivator," 
says,  —  and  the  only  translation  I  have  seen  makes  sheer 
nonsense  of  the  passage,  —  "  When  you  think  of  getting 
a  farm  turn  it  thus  in  your  mind,  not  to  buy  greedily; 
nor  spare  your  pains  to  look  at  it,  and  do  not  think 
it  enough  to  go  round  it  once.  The  oftener  you  go  there 
the  more  it  will  please  you,  if  it  is  good."  I  think  I  shall 
not  buy  greedily,  but  go  round  and  round  it  as  long  as  I 
live,  and  be  buried  in  it  first,  that  it  may  please  me  the 
more  at  last. 

The  present  was  my  next  experiment  of  this  kind, 
which  I  purpose  to  describe  more  at  length,  for  con- 


2  WALDEN 

venience  putting  the  experience  of  two  years  into  one. 
As  I  have  said,  I  do  not  propose  to  write  an  ode  to 
dejection,  but  to  brag  as  lustily  as  chanticleer  in  the 
morning,  standing  on  his  roost,  if  only  to  wake  my 
neighbors  up. 

When  first  I  took  up  my  abode  in  the  woods,  that  is, 
began  to  spend  my  nights  as  well  as  days  there,  which, 
by  accident,  was  on  Independence  Day,  or  the  Fourth 
of  July,  1845,  my  house  was  not  finished  for  winter,  but 
was  merely  a  defence  against  the  rain,  without  plastering 
or  chimney,  the  walls  being  of  rough,  weather-stained 
boards,  with  wide  chinks,  which  made  it  cool  at  night. 
The  upright  white  hewn  studs  and  freshly  planed  door 
and  window  casings  gave  it  a  clean  and  airy  look,  es 
pecially  in  the  morning,  when  its  timbers  were  saturated 
with  dew,  so  that  I  fancied  that  by  noon  some  sweet  gum 
would  exude  from  them.  To  my  imagination  it  retained 
throughout  the  day  more  or  less  of  this  auroral  charac 
ter,  reminding  me  of  a  certain  house  on  a  mountain 
which  I  had  visited  a  year  before.  This  was  an  airy  and 
unplastered  cabin,  fit  to  entertain  a  travelling  god,  and 
where  a  goddess  might  trail  her  garments.  The  winds 
which  passed  over  my  dwelling  were  such  as  sweep  over 
the  ridges  of  mountains,  bearing  the  broken  strains,  or 
celestial  parts  only,  of  terrestrial  music.  The  morning 
wind  forever  blows,  the  poem  of  creation  is  uninter 
rupted;  but  few  are  the  ears  that  hear  it.  Olympus  is 
but  the  outside  of  the  earth  everywhere. 

The  only  house  I  had  been  the  owner  of  before,  if  I 
except  a  boat,  was  a  tent,  which  I  used  occasionally 
when  making  excursions  in  the  summer,  and  this  is  still 


WHERE   I   LIVED  95 

rolled  up  in  my  garret ;  but  the  boat,  after  passing  from 
hand  to  hand,  has  gone  down  the  stream  of  time.  With 
this  more  substantial  shelter  about  me,  I  had  made 
some  progress  toward  settling  in  the  world.  This  frame, 
so  slightly  clad,  was  a  sort  of  crystallization  around  me, 
and  reacted  on  the  builder.  It  was  suggestive  some 
what  as  a  picture  in  outlines.  I  did  not  need  to  go  out 
doors  to  take  the  air,  for  the  atmosphere  within  had  lost 
none  of  its  freshness.  It  was  not  so  much  within -doors 
as  behind  a  door  where  I  sat,  even  in  the  rainiest  weather. 
The  Harivansa  says,  "  An  abode  without  birds  is  like  a 
meat  without  seasoning."  Such  was  not  my  abode,  for 
I  found  myself  suddenly  neighbor  to  the  birds ;  not  by 
having  imprisoned  one,  but  having  caged  myself  near 
them.  I  was  not  only  nearer  to  some  of  those  which 
commonly  frequent  the  garden  and  the  orchard,  but  to 
those  wilder  and  more  thrilling  songsters  of  the  forest 
which  never,  or  rarely,  serenade  a  villager,  —  the  wood 
thrush,  the  veery,  the  scarlet  tanager,  the  field  sparrow, 
the  whip-poor-will,  and  many  others. 

I  was  seated  by  the  shore  of  a  small  pond,  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  south  of  the  village  of  Concord  and 
somewhat  higher  than  it,  in  the  midst  of  an  extensive 
wood  between  that  town  and  Lincoln,  and  about  two 
miles  south  of  that  our  only  field  known  to  fame,  Con 
cord  Battle  Ground ;  but  I  was  so  low  in  the  woods  that 
the  opposite  shore,  half  a  mile  off,  like  the  rest,  covered 
with  wood,  was  my  most  distant  horizon.  For  the  first 
week,  whenever  I  looked  out  on  the  pond  it  impressed 
me  like  a  tarn  high  up  on  the  side  of  a  mountain,  its 
bottom  far  above  the  surface  of  other  lakes,  and,  as  the 


96  WALDEN 

sun  arose,  I  saw  it  throwing  off  its  nightly  clothing  of 
mist,  and  here  and  there,  by  degrees,  its  soft  ripples  or 
its  smooth  reflecting  surface  was  revealed,  while  the 
mists,  like  ghosts,  were  stealthily  withdrawing  in  every 
direction  into  the  woods,  as  at  the  breaking  up  of  some 
nocturnal  conventicle.  The  very  dew  seemed  to  hang 
upon  the  trees  later  into  the  day  than  usual,  as  on  the 
sides  of  mountains. 

This  small  lake  was  of  most  value  as  a  neighbor  in 
the  intervals  of  a  gentle  rain-storm  in  August,  when, 
both  air  and  water  being  perfectly  still,  but  the  sky  over 
cast,  mid-afternoon  had  all  the  serenity  of  evening,  and 
the  wood  thrush  sang  around,  and  was  heard  from  shore 
to  shore.  A  lake  like  this  is  never  smoother  than  at  such 
a  time;  and  the  clear  portion  of  the  air  above  it  being 
shallow  and  darkened  by  clouds,  the  water,  full  of  light 
and  reflections,  becomes  a  lower  heaven  itself  so  much 
the  more  important.  From  a  hill-top  near  by,  where  the 
wood  had  been  recently  cut  off,  there  was  a  pleasing 
vista  southward  across  the  pond,  through  a  wide  inden 
tation  in  the  hills  which  form  the  shore  there,  where 
their  opposite  sides  sloping  toward  each  other  suggested 
a  stream  flowing  out  in  that  direction  through  a  wooded 
valley,  but  stream  there  was  none.  That  way  I  looked1"* 
between  and  over  the  near  green  hills  to  some  distant 
and  higher  ones  in  the  horizon,  tinged  with  blue.  In 
deed,  by  standing  on  tiptoe  I  could  catch  a  glimpse 
of  some  of  the  peaks  of  the  still  bluer  and  more  dis 
tant  mountain  ranges  in  the  northwest,  those  true-blue 
coins  from  heaven's  own  mint,  and  also  of  some  portion 
of  the  village.  But  in  other  directions,  even  from  this 


WHER3  I  LIVED  97 

point,  I  could  not  see  over  or  beyond  the  woods  which 
surrounded  me.  It  is  well  to  have  some  water  in  your 
neighborhood,  to  give  buoyancy  to  and  float  the  earth. 
One  value  even  of  the  smallest  well  is,  that  when  you 
look  into  it  you  see  that  earth  is  not  continent  but  in 
sular.  This  is  as  important  as  that  it  keeps  butter  cool. 
When  I  looked  across  the  pond  from  this  peak  toward 
the  Sudbury  meadows,  which  in  time  of  flood  I  dis- 

'  tinguished  elevated  perhaps  by  a  mirage  in  their  seeth 
ing  valley,  like  a  coin  in  a  basin,  all  the  earth  beyond 
the  pond  appeared  like  a  thin  crust  insulated  and  floated 
even  by  this  small  sheet  of  intervening  water,  and  I  was 
reminded  that  this  on  which  I  dwelt  was  but  dry  land. 

Though  the  view  from  my  door  was  still  more  con 
tracted,  I  did  not  feel  crowded  or  confined  in  the  least. 

|  There  was  pasture  enough  for  my  imagination.  The  low 
shrub  oak  plateau  to  which  the  opposite  shore  arose 
stretched  away  toward  the  prairies  of  the  West  and  the 
steppes  of  Tartary,  affording  ample  room  for  all  the 
roving  families  of  men.  "  There  are  none  happy  in  the 
world  but  beings  who  enjoy  freely  a  vast  horizon," 
said  Damodara,  when  his  herds  required  new  and 
larger  pastures. 

Both  place  and  time  were  changed,  and  I  dwelt  nearer 
to  those  parts  of  the  universe  and  to  those  eras  in  his 
tory  which  had  most  attracted  me.  Whore  I  lived  was 
as  far  off  as  many  a  region  viewed  nightly  by  astro 
nomers.  We  are  wont  to  imagine  rare  and  delectable 
places  in  some  remote  and  more  celestial  corner  of  the 
system,  behind  the  constellation  of  Cassiopeia's  Chair, 
far  from  noise  and  disturbance.  I  discovered  that  my 


08  WALDEN 

house  actually  had  its  site  in  such  a  withdrawn,  but  for 
ever  new  and  unprofaned,  part  of  the  universe.  If  it 
were  worth  the  while  to  settle  in  those  parts  near  to  the 
Pleiades  or  the  Hyades,  to  Aldebaran  or  Altair,  then 
I  was  really  there,  or  at  an  equal  remoteness  from  the 
life  which  I  had  left  behind,  dwindled  and  twinkling  with 
as  fine  a  ray  to  my  nearest  neighbor,  and  to  be  seen  only 
in  moonless  nights  by  him.  Such  was  that  part  of  crea 
tion  where  I  had  squatted ;  — 

"There  was  a  shepherd  that  did  live, 

And  held  his  thoughts  as  high 
As  were  the  mounts  whereon  his  flocks 
Did  hourly  feed  him  by." 

What  should  we  think  of  the  shepherd's  life  if  his  flocks 
always  wandered  to  higher  pastures  than  his  thoughts  ? 
Every  morning  was  a  cheerful  invitation  to  make 
my  life  of  equal  simplicity,  and  I  may  say  innocence, 
with  Nature  herself.  I  have  been  as  sincere  a  worshipper 
of  Aurora  as  the  Greeks.  I  got  up  early  and  bathed  in 
the  pond;  that  was  a  religious  exercise,  and  one  of  the 
best  things  which  I  did.  They  say  that  characters  were 
engraven  on  the  bathing  tub  of  King  Tching-thang  to 
this  effect:  "Renew  thyself  completely  each  day;  do 
it  again,  and  again,  and  forever  again."  I  can  under 
stand  that.  Morning  brings  back  the  heroic  ages.  I  was 
as  much  affected  by  the  faint  hum  of  a  mosquito  mak 
ing  its  invisible  and  unimaginable  tour  through  my 
apartment  at  earliest  dawn,  when  I  was  sitting  with  door 
and  windows  open,  as  I  could  be  by  any  trumpet  that 
ever  sang  of  fame.  It  was  Homer's  requiem;  itself  an 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  in  the  air,  singing  its  own  wrath  and 


WHAT   I   LIVED   FOR  99 


wanderings.  There  was  something  cosmical  about  it; 
a  standing  advertisement,  till  forbidden,  of  the  everlast 
ing  vigor  and  fertility  of  the  world.  The  morning, 
which  is  the  most  memorable  season  of  the  day,  is  the 
awakening  hour.  Then  there  is  least  somnolence  in  us ; 
and  for  an  hour,  at  least,  some  part  of  us  awakes  which 
slumbers  all  the  rest  of  the  day  and  night.  Little  is  to 
be  expected  of  that  day,  if  it  can  be  called  a  day,  to 
which  we  are  not  awakened  by  our  Genius,  but  by  the 
mechanical  nudgings  of  some  servitor,  are  not  awakened 
by  our  own  newly  acquired  force  and  aspirations  from 
within,  accompanied  by  the  undulations  of  celestial 
music,  instead  of  factory  bells,  and  a  fragrance  filling 
the  air  —  to  a  higher  life  than  we  fell  asleep  from ;  and 
thus  the  darkness  bear  its  fruit,  and  prove  itself  to  be 
good,  no  less  than  the  light.  That  man  who  does  not 
believe  that  each  day  contains  an  earlier,  more  sacred, 
and  auroral  hour  than  he  has  yet  profaned,  has  de 
spaired  of  life,  and  is  pursuing  a  descending  and  dark 
ening  way.  After  a  partial  cessation  of  his  sensuous 
life,  the  soul  of  man,  or  its  organs  rather,  are  reinvig- 
orated  each  day,  and  his  Genius  tries  again  what  noble 
life  it  can  make.  All  memorable  events,  I  should  say, 
transpire  in  morning  time  and  in  a  morning  atmosphere. 
The  Vedas  say,  "  All  intelligences  awake  with  the  morn 
ing."  Poetry  and  art,  and  the  fairest  and  most  mem 
orable  of  the  actions  of  men,  date  from  such  an  hour. 
All  poets  and  heroes,  like  Memnon,  are  the  children  of 
Aurora,  and  emit  their  music  at  sunrise.  To  him  whose 
elastic  and  vigorous  thought  keeps  pace  with  the  sun, 
the  day  is  a  perpetual  morning.  It  matters  not  what  the 


WALDEN 

clocks  say  or  the  attitudes  and  labors  of  men.  Morning 
is  when  I  am  awake  and  there  is  a  dawn  in  me.  Moral 
reform  is  the  effort  to  throw  off  sleep.  Why  is  it  that 
men  give  so  poor  an  account  of  their  day  if  they  have 
not  been  slumbering  ?  They  are  not  such  poor  calcula 
tors.  If  they  had  not  been  overcome  with  drowsiness, 
they  would  have  performed  something.  The  millions 
are  awake  enough  for  physical  labor;  but  only  one  in  a 
million  is  awake  enough  for  effective  intellectual  exer 
tion,  only  one  in  a  hundred  millions  to  a  poetic  or  divine 
life.  To  be  awake  is  to  be  alive.  I  have  never  yet  met  a 
man  who  was  quite  awake.  How  could  I  have  looked  him 
in  the  face  ? 

We  must  learn  to  reawaken  and  keep  ourselves 
awake,  not  by  mechanical  aids,  but  by  an  infinite  ex 
pectation  of  the  dawn,  which  does  not  forsake  us  in  our 
soundest  sleep.  I  know  of  no  more  encouraging  fact 
than  the  unquestionable  ability  of  man  to  elevate  his 
life  by  a  conscious  endeavor.  It  is  something  to  be  able 
to  paint  a  particular  picture,  or  to  carve  a  statue,  and 
so  to  make  a  few  objects  beautiful;  but  it  is  far  more 
glorious  to  carve  and  paint  the  very  atmosphere  and 
medium  through  which  we  look,  which  morally  we  can 
do.  To  affect  the  quality  of  the  day,  that  is  the  highest 
of  arts.  Every  man  is  tasked  to  make  his  life,  even  in  its 
details,  worthy  of  the  contemplation  of  his  most  elevated 
and  critical  hour.  If  we  refused,  or  rather  used  up, 
such  paltry  information  as  we  get,  the  oracles  would 
jf  distinctly  inform  us  how  this  might  be  done. 
if  t  '  I  went  to  the  woods  because  I  wished  to  live  delib- 
I  erately,  to  front  only  the  essential  facts  of  life,  and  see 


v 


WHAT  I  LIVED  FOR/ 


if  I  could  not  learn  what  it  had  to  teach,  and  not,  when 
I  came  to  die,  discover  that  I  had  not  lived.    I  did  not] 
wish  to  live  what  was  not  life,  living  is  so  dear;  nor  did\ 
I  wish  to  practise  resignation,  unless  it  was  quite  neces-  I 
sary.  I  wanted  to  live  deep  and  suck  out  all  the  marrow  1 
of  life,  to  live  so  sturdily  and  Spartan-like  as  to  put  to 
rout  all  that  was  not  life,  to  cut  a  broad  swath  and  shave 
close,  to  drive  life  into  a  corner,  and  reduce  it  to  its 
lowest  terms,  and,  if  it  proved  to  be  mean,  why  then 
to  get  the  whole  and  genuine  meanness  of  it,  and  pub 
lish  its  meanness  to  the  world  ;  or  if  it  were  sublime,  to 
know  it  by  experience,  and  be  able  to  give  a  true  ac 
count  of  it  in  my  next  excursion.    For  most  men,  it  ap 
pears  to  me,  are  in  a  strange  uncertainty  about  it, 
whether  it  is  of  the  devil  or  of  God,  and  have  somewhat 
hastily  concluded  that  it  is  the  chief  end  of  man  here 
to  "glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  forever." 

Still  we  live  meanly,  like  ants  ;  though  the  fable  tells 
us  that  we  were  long  ago  changed  into  men;  like  pyg 
mies  we  fight  with  cranes;  it  is  error  upon  error,  and 
clout  upon  clout,  and  our  best  virtue  has  for  its  occasion 
a  superfluous  and  evitable  wretchedness.  Our  life  is 
frittered  away  by  detail.  An  honest  man  has  hardly 
need  to  count  more  than  his  ten  fingers,  or  in  extreme 
cases  he  may  add  his  ten  toes,  and  lump  the  rest.  _Sim=- 
plioity^simplicitY^  simpliqjy!  I  say,  let  your  affairs  be 
as  two  or  three,  and  not  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  ;  in 
stead  of  a  million  count  half  a  dozen,  and  keep  your 
accounts  on  your  thumb-nail.  In  the  midst  of  this  chop 
ping  sea  of  civilized  life,  such  are  the  clouds  and  storms 
and  quicksands  and  thousand-and-one  items  to  be  al- 


WALDEN 


lowed  for,  that  a  man  has  to  live,  if  he  would  not  founder 
and  go  to  the  bottom  and  not  make  his  port  at  all,  by 
dead  reckoning,  and  he  must  be  a  great  calculator  indeed 
succeeds.  ^jPplifyn  s"nplify.  Instead  of  three 
meals  a  day,  if  it  be  necessary  eat  but  one  ;  instead  of  a 
hundred  dishes,  five;  and  reduce  other  things  in  pro 
portion.  Our  life  is  like  a  German  Confederacy,  made 
up  of  petty  states,  with  its  boundary  forever  fluctuating, 
so  that  even  a  German  cannot  tell  you  how  it  is  bounded 
at  any  moment.  The  nation  itself,  with  all  its  so-called 
internal  improvements,  which,  by  the  way  are  all  ex 
ternal  and  superficial,  is  just  such  an  unwieldy  and 
overgrown  establishment,  cluttered  with  furniture  and 
tripped  up  by  its  own  traps,  ruined  by  luxury  and  heed 
less  expense,  by  want  of  calculation  and  a  worthy  aim, 
as  the  million  households  in  the  land  ;  and  the  only  cure 
for  it,  as  for  them,  is  in  a  rigid  economy,  a  stern  and  more 
than  Spartan  simplicity  of  life  and  elevation  of  purpose. 
It  lives  too  fast.  Men  think  that  it  is  essential  that  the 
Nation  have  commerce,  and  export  ice,  and  talk  through 
a  telegraph,  and  ride  thirty  miles  an  hour,  without  a 
doubt,  whether  they  do  or  not;  but  whether  we  should 
live  like  baboons  or  like  men,  is  a  little  uncertain.  If  we 
do  not  get  out  sleepers,  and  forge  rails,  and  devote  days 
and  nights  to  the  work,  but  go  to  tinkering  upon  our 
lives  to  improve  them,  who  will  build  railroads  ?  And 
if  railroads  are  not  built,  how  shall  we  get  to  heaven  in 
season  ?  But  if  we  stay  at  home  and  mind  our  business, 
who  will  want  railroads  ?  We  do  not  ride  on  the  railroad  ; 
it  rides  upon  us.  Did  you  ever  think  what  those  sleepers 
are  that  underlie  the  railroad  ?  Each  one  is  a  man,  an 


WHAT  I  LIVED  FOR 


Irishman,  or  a  Yankee  man.  The  rails  are  laid  on  tem^' 
and  they  are  covered  with  sand,  and  the  cars  rua~ 
smoothly  over  them.  They  are  sound  sleepers,  I  assure 
you.  And  every  few  years  a  new  lot  is  laid  down  and 
run  over;  so  that,  if  some  have  the  pleasure  of  riding 
on  a  rail,  others  have  the  misfortune  to  be  ridden  upon. 
And  when  they  run  over  a  man  that  is  walking  in  his 
sleep,  a  supernumerary  sleeper  in  the  wrong  position, 
and  wake  him  up,  they  suddenly  stop  the  cars,  and 
make  a  hue  and  cry  about  it,  as  if  this  were  an  excep 
tion.  I  am  glad  to  know  that  it  takes  a  gang  of  men  for 
every  five  miles  to  keep  the  sleepers  down  and  level  in 
their  beds  as  it  is,  for  this  is  a  sign  that  they  may  some 
time  get  up  again. 

Why  should  we  live  with  such  hurry  and  waste  of  life  ? 
We  are  determined  to  be  starved  before  we  are  hungry. 
Men  say  that  a  stitch  in  time  saves  nine,  and  so  they 
take  a  thousand  stitches  to-day  to  save  nine  to-morrow. 
As  for  work,  we  have  n't  any  of  any  consequence.  We 
have  the  Saint  Vitus'  dance,  and  cannot  possibly  keep 
our  heads  still.  If  I  should  only  give  a  few  pulls  at  the 
parish  bell-rope,  as  for  a  fire,  that  is,  without  setting  the 
bell,  there  is  hardly  a  man  on  his  farm  in  the  outskirts 
of  Concord,  notwithstanding  that  press  of  engagements, 
which  was  his  excuse  so  many  times  this  morning,  nor 
a  boy,  nor  a  woman,  I  might  almost  say,  but  would  for 
sake  all  and  follow  that  sound,  not  mainly  to  save  pro 
perty  from  the  flames,  but,  if  we  will  confess  the  truth, 
much  more  to  see  it  burn,  since  burn  it  must,  and  we, 
be  it  known,  did  not  set  it  on  fire,  —  or  to  see  it  put  out, 
and  have  a  hand  in  it,  if  that  is  done  as  handsomely; 


>\    .    WALDEN 


yes,  even  if  it  were  the  parish  church  itself.  Hardly  a 
man  takes  a  half  -hour's  nap  after  dinner,  but  when  he 
wakes  he  holds  up  his  head  and  asks,  "What's  the 
news  ?  "  as  if  the  rest  of  mankind  had  stood  his  sentinels. 
Some  give  directions  to  be  waked  every  half  -hour,  doubt 
less  for  no  other  purpose;  and  then,  to  pay  for  it,  they 
tell  what  they  have  dreamed.  After  a  night's  sleep  the 
news  is  as  indispensable  as  the  breakfast.  "Pray  tell 
me  anything  new  that  has  happened  to  a  man  anywhere 
on  this  globe,"  —  and  he  reads  it  over  his  coffee  and 
rolls,  that  a  man  has  had  his  eyes  gouged  out  this  morn 
ing  on  the  Wachito  River;  never  dreaming  the  while 
that  he  lives  in  the  dark  unfathomed  mammoth  cave  of 
this  world,  and  has  but  the  rudiment  of  an  eye  himself. 
For  my  part,  I  could  easily  do  without  the  post-office. 
I  think  that  there  are  very  few  important  communica 
tions  made  through  it.  To  speak  critically,  I  never  re 
ceived  more  than  one  or  two  letters  in  my  life  —  I  wrote 
this  some  years  ago  —  that  were  worth  the  postage. 
The  penny-post  is,  commonly,  an  institution  through 
which  you  seriously  offer  a  man  that  penny  for  his 
thoughts  which  is  so  often  safely  offered  in  jest.  And  I 
am  sure  that  I  never  read  any  memorable  news  in  a 
newspaper.  If  we  read  of  one  man  robbed,  or  murdered, 
or  killed  by  accident,  or  one  house  burned,  or  one  ves 
sel  wrecked,  or  one  steamboat  blown  up,  or  one  cow 
run  over  on  the  Western  Railroad,  or  one  mad  dog 
killed,  or  one  lot  of  grasshoppers  in  the  winter,  —  we 
never  need  read  of  another.  One  is  enough.  If  you  are 
acquainted  with  the  principle,  what  do  you  care  for  a 
myriad  instances  and  applications  ?  To  a  philosopher  all 


WHAT  I  LIVED  FOR  105 

•  » 

news,  as  it  is  called,  is  gossip,  and  they  who  edit  and 
read  it  are  old  women  over  their  tea.  Yet  not  a  few  are 
greedy  after  this  gossip.  There  was  such  a  rush,  as  I 
hear,  the  other  day  at  one  of  the  offices  to  learn  the 
foreign  news  by  the  last  arrival,  that  several  large 
squares  of  plate  glass  belonging  to  the  establishment 
were  broken  by  the  pressure,  —  news  which  I  seriously 
think  a  ready  wit  might  write  a  twelvemonth,  or  twelve 
years,  beforehand  with  sufficient  accuracy.  As  for 
Spain,  for  instance,  if  you  know  how  to  throw  in  Don 
Carlos  and  the  Infanta,  and  Don  Pedro  and  Seville  and 
Granada,  from  time  to  time  in  the  right  proportions, 
—  they  may  have  changed  the  names  a  little  since  I 
saw  the  papers,  —  and  serve  up  a  bull-fight  when  other 
entertainments  fail,  it  will  be  true  to  the  letter,  and  give 
us  as  good  an  idea  of  the  exact  state  or  ruin  of  things  in 
Spain  as  the  most  succinct  and  lucid  reports  under  this 
head  in  the  newspapers :  and  as  for  England,  almost  the 
last  significant  scrap  of  news  from  that  quarter  was  the 
revolution  of  1649;  and  if  you  have  learned  the  history 
of  her  crops  for  an  average  year,  you  never  need  attend 
to  that  thing  again,  unless  your  speculations  are  of  a 
merely  pecuniary  character.  If  one  may  judge  who 
rarely  looks  into  the  newspapers,  nothing  new  does 
ever  happen  in  foreign  parts,  a  French  revolution  not 
excepted. 

What  news !  how  much  more  important  to  know  what 
that  is  which  was  never  old !  "  Kieou-he-yu  (great  dig 
nitary  of  the  state  of  Wei)  sent  a  man  to  Khoung-tseu  to 
know  his  news.  Khoung-tseu  caused  the  messenger  to 
be  seated  near  him,  and  questioned  him  in  these  terms: 


106  WALDEN 

What  is  your  master  doing  ?  The  messenger  answered 
with  respect:  My  master  desires  to  diminish  the  num 
ber  of  his  faults,  but  he  cannot  come  to  the  end  of  them. 
The  messenger  being  gone,  the  philosopher  remarked: 
What  a  worthy  messenger!  What  a  worthy  messen 
ger!"  The  preacher,  instead  of  vexing  the  ears  of 
drowsy  farmers  on  their  day  of  rest  at  the  end  of  the 
week,  —  for  Sunday  is  the  fit  conclusion  of  an  ill-spent 
week,  and  not  the  fresh  and  brave  beginning  of  a  new 
one,  —  with  this  one  other  draggle-tail  of  a  sermon, 
should  shout  with  thundering  voice,  "Pause!  Avast! 
Why  so  seeming  fast,  but  deadly  slow  ?  " 

Shams  and  delusions  are  esteemed  for  soundest 
truths,  while  reality  is  fabulous.  If  men  would  steadily 
observe  realities  only,  and  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
deluded,  life,  to  compare  it  with  such  things  as  we 
know,  would  be  like  a  fairy  tale  and  the  Arabian  Nights' 
Entertainments.  If  we  respected  only  what  is  inevi 
table  and  has  a  right  to  be,  music  and  poetry  would  re 
sound  along  the  streets.  When  we  are  unhurried  and 
wise,  we  perceive  that  only  great  and  worthy  things 
have  any  permanent  and  absolute  existence,  that 
petty  fears  and  petty  pleasures  are  but  the  shadow  of 
the  reality.  This  is  always  exhilarating  and  sublime. 
By  closing  the  eyes  and  slumbering,  and  consenting  to 
be  deceived  by  shows,  men  establish  and  confirm  theii 
daily  life  of  routine  and  habit  everywhere,  which  still 
is  built  on  purely  illusory  foundations.  Children,  who 
play  life,  discern  its  true  law  and  relations  more  clearly 
than  men,  who  fail  to  live  it  worthily,  but  who  think 
that  they  are  wiser  by  experience,  that  is,  by  failure.  I 


have  read  in  a  Hindoo  book,  that  "there  was  a  king's 
son,  who,  being  expelled  in  infancy  from  his  native 
city,  was  brought  up  by  a  forester,  and,  growing  up  to 
maturity  in  that  state,  imagined  himself  to  belong  to 
the  barbarous  race  with  which  he  lived.  One  of  his 
father's  ministers  having  discovered  him,  revealed  to 
him  what  he  was,  and  the  misconception  of  his  character 
was  removed,  and  he  knew  himself  to  be  a  prince.  So 
soul,"  continues  the  Hindoo  philosopher,  "from  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  is  placed,  mistakes  its 
character,  until  the  truth  is  revealed  to  it  by  some  holy 
teacher,  and  then  it  knows  itself  to  be  Brahme."  I  per- 
ceive  that  we  inhabitants  of  New  England  live_ 
mean  life  *hat  w^  d^  b^qiTCA  ™ir  vin^n  H^OT  not  p°ne- 
trate  the  surface  of  things^.  We  thinkjhat  that  is  which- 
appears  to  be.  Jf  a  man  should  walk  through  this  town 
and  see  only  the  reality,  where,  think  you,  would  the 
"  Mill-dam  "  go  to  ?  If  he  should  give  us  an  account  of 
the  realities  he  beheld  there,  we  should  not  recognize 
the  place  in  his  description.  Look  at  a  meeting-house,  or 
a  court-house,  or  a  jail,  or  a  shop,  or  a  dwelling-house, 
and  say  what  that  thing  really  is  before  a  true  gaze,  and 
they  would  all  go  to  pieces  in  your  account  of  them. 
Men  esteem  truth  remote,  in  the  outskirts  of  the  sys 
tem,  behind  the  farthest  star,  before  Adam  and  after 
the  last  man.  In  eternity  there  is  indeed  something  true 
and  sublime.  But  all  these  times  and  places  and  occa 
sions  are  now  and  here.  God  himself  culminates  in  the 
present  moment,  and  will  never  be  more  divine  in  the 
lapse  of  all  the  ages.  And  we  are  enabled  to  apprehend 
at  all  what  is  sublime  and  noble  only  by  the  perpetual 


108  }f 

instilling  and  drenching  of  the  reality  that  surrounds 
us.  The  universe  constantly  and  obediently  answers 
to  our  conceptions;  whether  we  travel  fast  or  slow,  the 
track  is  laid  for  us.  Let  us  spend  our  lives  irf  conceiving 
then.  The  poet  or  the  artist  never  yet  had  so  fair  and 
noble  a  design*  but  some  of  his  posterity  at  least  could 
accomplish  it. 

Let  us  spend  one  day  as  deliberately  as  Nature,  and 
not  be  thrown  off  the  track  by  every  nutshell  and  mos 
quito's  wing  that  falls  on  the  rails.  Let  us  rise  early 
and  fast,  or  break  fast,  gently  and  without  perturbation ; 
let  company  come  and  let  company  go,  let  the  bells  ring 
and  the  children  cry,  —  determined  to  make  a  day  of 
it.  Why  should  we  knock  under  and  go  with  the  stream  ? 
Let  us  not  be  upset  and  overwhelmed  in  that  terrible 
rapid  and  whirlpool  called  a  dinner,  situated  in  the 
meridian  shallows.  Weather  this  danger  and  you  are 
safe,  for  the  rest  of  the  way  is  down  hill.  With  unre- 
laxed  nerves,  with  morning  vigor,  sail  by  it,  looking  an 
other  way,  tied  to  the  mast  like  Ulysses.  If  the  engine 
whistles,  let  it  whistle  till  it  is  hoarse  for  its  pains.  If 
the  bell  rings,  why  should  we  run  ?  We  will  consider 
what  kind  of  music  they  are  like.  Let  us  settle  ourselves, 
and  work  and  wedge  our  feet  downward  through  the 
mud  and  slush  of  opinion,  and  prejudice,  and  tradition, 
and  delusion,  and  appearance,  that  alluvion  which 
covers  the  globe,  through  Paris  and  London,  through 
New  York  and  Boston  and  Concord,  through  Church 
and  State,  through  poetry  and  philosophy  and  religion, 
till  we  come  to  a  hard  bottom  and  rocks  in  place,  which 
we  can  call  reality,  and  say,  This  is,  and  no  mistake ;  and 


WHAT  I  LIVEI},FO£.  (jOl 

then  begin,  having  a  point  d'appui,  below  freshet  and 
frost  and  fire,  a  place  where  you  might  found  a  wrall 
or  a  state,  or  set  a  lamp-post  safely,  or  perhaps  a  gauge, 
not  a  Nilometer,  but  a  Realometer,  that  future  ages 
might  know  how  deep  a  freshet  of  shams  and  appear 
ances  had  gathered  from  time  to  time.  If  you  stand 
right  fronting  and  face  to  face  to  a  fact,  you  will  see 
the  sun  glimmer  on  both  its  surfaces,  as  if  it  were  a 
cimeter,  and  feel  its  sweet  edge  dividing  you  through 
the  heart  and  marrow,  and  so  you  will  happily  conclude 
your  mortal  career.  Be  it  life  or  death,  we  crave  o^ly^ 
reality.  If  we  are  really  dying,  let  us  hear  the  rattle  in 
our  throats  and  feel  cold  in  the  extremities ;  if  we  are 

ive,  let  us  go  about  our  business. 

J]i|ae  jsjmt  the  stream^goj^fishiag  in.  I  drink  at  it"N 
but  while  I  drink  I  see  the  sandy  bottom  and  detect/ 
how  shallow  it  is.     Its  thin  current  slides  away,  but( 
eternity  remains.     I  would  drink  deeper;    fish  in  the\ 
sky,  whose  bottom  is  pebbly  with  stars.   I  cannot  coujitX 
one.    I  know  not  the  first  letter  of  the  alphabet.    I  have 
always  been  regretting  that  I  was  not  as  wise  as  the  day 
I  was  born^    The  intellect  is  a  cleaver;  it  discerns  and 
rifts  its  way  into  the  secret  of  things.    I  do  not  wish  to 
be  any  more  busy  with  my  hands  than  is  necessary.  My 
head  is  hands  and  feet.   I  feel  all  my  best  faculties  con 
centrated  in  it.   My  instinct  tells  me  that  my  head  is  an 
organ  for  burrowing,  as  some  creatures  use  their  snout 
and  fore  paws,  and  with  it  I  would  mine  and  burrow 
my  way  through  these  hills.  I  think  that  the  richest  vein 
is  somewhere  hereabouts;   so  by  the  divining-rod  and 
thin  rising  vapors  I  judge;  and  here  I  will  begin  to  mine. 


Ill 

READING 

WITH  a  little  more  deliberation  in  the  choice  of  their 
pursuits,  all  men  would  perhaps  become  essentially 
students  and  observers,  for  certainly  their  nature  and 
destiny  are  interesting  to  all  alike.  In  accumulating 
property  for  ourselves  or  our  posterity,  in  founding  a 
family  or  a  state,  or  acquiring  fame  even,  we  are  mortal ; 
but  in  dealing  with  truth  we  are  immortal,  and  need 
fear  no  change  nor  accident.  The  oldest  Egyptian  or 
Hindoo  philosopher  raised  a  corner  of  the  veil  from  the 
statue  of  the  divinity;  and  still  the  trembling  robe  re 
mains  raised,  and  I  gaze  upon  as  fresh  a  glory  as  he 
did,  since  it  was  I  in  him  that  was  then  so  bold,  and  it 
is  he  in  me  that  now  reviews  the  vision.  No  dust  has 
settled  on  that  robe;  no  time  has  elapsed  since  that 
divinity  was  revealed.  That  time  which  we  really  im 
prove,  or  which  is  improvable,  is  neither  past,  present, 
nor  future. 

My  residence  was  more  favorable,  not  only  to  thought, 
but  to  serious  reading,  than  a  university ;  and  though  I 
was  beyond  the  range  of  the  ordinary  circulating  library, 
I  had  more  than  ever  come  within  the  influence  of  those 
books  which  circulate  round  the  world,  whose  sentences 
were  first  written  on  bark,  and  are  now  merely  copied 
from  time  to  time  on  to  linen  paper.  Says  the  poet  Mir 


READING  111 

Camar  Uddin  Mast,  "Being  seated,  to  run  through  the 
region  of  the  spiritual  world ;  I  have  had  this  advantage 
in  books.  To  be  intoxicated  by  a  single  glass  of  wine ;  I 
have  experienced  this  pleasure  when  I  have  drunk  the 
liquor  of  the  esoteric  doctrines."  I  kept  Homer's  Iliad 
on  my  table  through  the  summer,  though  I  looked  at 
his  page  only  now  and  then.  Incessant  labor  with  my 
hands,  at  first,  for  I  had  my  house  to  finish  and  my 
beans  to  hoe  at  the  same  time,  made  more  study  impos 
sible.  Yet  I  sustained  myself  by  the  prospect  of  such 
reading  in  future.  I  read  one  or  two  shallow  books  of 
travel  in  the  intervals  of  my  work,  till  that  employment 
made  me  ashamed  of  myself,  and  I  asked  where  it  was 
then  that  /  lived. 

The  student  may  read  Homer  or  JSschylus  in  the 
Greek  without  danger  of  dissipation  or  luxuriousness, 
for  it  implies  that  he  in  some  measure  emulate  their 
heroes,  and  consecrate  morning  hours  to  their  pages. 
The  heroic  books,  even  if  printed  in  the  character  of  our 
mother  tongue,  will  always  be  in  a  language  dead  to 
degenerate  times;  and  we  must  laboriously  seek  the 
meaning  of  each  word  and  line,  conjecturing  a  larger 
sense  than  common  use  permits  out  of  what  wisdom 
and  valor  and  generosity  we  have.  The  modern  cheap~"\ 
and  fertile  press,  with  all  its  translations,  has  done  little  / 
to  bring  us  nearer  to  the  heroic  writers  of  antiquity*-'' 
They  seem  as  solitary,  and  the  letter  in  which  they  are 
printed  as  rare  and  curious,  as  ever.  It  is  worth  the 
expense  of  youthful  days  and  costly  hours,  if  you  learn 
only  some  words  of  an  ancient  language,  which  are 
raised  out  of  the  trivialness  of  the  street,  to  be  perpetual 


WALDEN 

suggestions  and  provocations.  It  is  not  in  vain  that  the 
farmer  remembers  and  repeats  the  few  Latin  words 
which  he  has  heard.  Men  sometimes  speak  as  if  the 
study  of  the  classics  would  at  length  make  way  for  more 
modern  and  practical  studies;  but  the  adventurous 
student  will  always  study  classics,  in  whatever  language 
they  may  be  written  and  however  ancient  they  may  be. 
Fjor_w]iai_jy-e_JJ^  jecordexL 

thoughts  joLmau^  They  are  the  only  oracles  which  are 
not  decayed,  and  there  are  such  answers  to  the  most 
modern  inquiry  in  them  as  Delphi  and  Dodona  never 
gave.  We  might  as  well  omit  to  study  Nature  because 
she  is  old.  To  read  well,  that  is,  to  read  true  books  in 
a  true  spirit,  is  a  noble  exercise,  and  one  that  will  task 
the  reader  more  than  any  exercise  which  the  customs  of 
the  day  esteem.  It  requires  a  training  such  as  the  athletes 
underwent,  the  steady  intention  almost  of  the  whole  life 
to  this  object.  Books  must  be  read  as  deliberately  and 
reservedly  as  they  were  written.  It  is  not  enough  even 
to  be  able  to  speak  the  language  of  that  nation  by  which 
they  are  written,  for  there  is  a  memorable  interval  be 
tween  the  spoken  and  the  written  language,  the  lan 
guage  heard  and  the  language  read.  The  one  is  com 
monly  transitory,  a  sound,  a  tongue,  a  dialect  merely, 
almost  brutish,  and  we  learn  it  unconsciously,  like  the 
brutes,  of  our  mothers.  The  other  is  the  maturity  and 
Experience  of  that ;  if  that  is  our  mother  tongue,  this  is 
our  father  tongue,  a  reserved  and  select  expression,  too 
significant  to  be  heard  by  the  ear,  which  we  must  be 
born  again  in  order  to  speak.  The  crowds  of  men  who 
merely  spoke  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues  in  the  Mid- 


READING  113 

die  Ages  were  not  entitled  by  the  accident  of  birth  to 
read  the  works  of  genius  written  in  those  languages; 
for  these  were  not  written  in  that  Greek  or  Latin  which 
they  knew,  but  in  the  select  language  of  literature.  They 
had  not  learned  the  nobler  dialects  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
but  the  very  materials  on  which  they  were  written  were 
waste  paper  to  them,  and  they  prized  instead  a  cheap 
contemporary  literature.  But  when  the  several  nations 
of  Europe  had  acquired  distinct  though  rude  written 
languages  of  their  own,  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of 
their  rising  literatures,  then  first  learning  revived,  and 
scholars  were  enabled  to  discern  from  that  remoteness 
the  treasures  of  antiquity.  What  the  Roman  and  Grecian 
multitude  could  not  hear,  after  the  lapse  of  ages  a  few 
scholars  read,  and  a  few  scholars  only  are  still  reading  it. 
However  much  we  may  admire  the  orator's  occasional 
bursts  of  eloquence,  the  noblest  written  words  are  com 
monly  as  far  behind  or  above  the  fleeting  spoken  lan 
guage  as  the  firmament  with  its  stars  is  behind  the 
clouds.  There  are  the  stars,  and  they  who  can  may  read 
them.  The  astronomers  forever  comment  on  and  ob 
serve  them.  They  are  not  exhalations  like  our  daily 
colloquies  and  vaporous  breath.  What  is  called  elo 
quence  in  the  forum  is  commonly  found  to  be  rhetoric 
in  the  study.  The  orator  yields  to  the  inspiration  of  a 
transient  occasion,  and  speaks  to  the  mob  before  him, 
to  those  who  can  hear  him ;  but  the  writer,  whose  more 
equable  life  is  his  occasion,  and  who  would  be  distracted 
by  the  event  and  the  crowd  which  inspire  the  orator, 
speaks  to  the  intellect  and  heart  of  mankind,  to  all  in 
any  age  who  can  understand  him. 


114  WALDEN 

No  wonder  that  Alexander  carried  the  Iliad  with  him 
on  his  expeditions  in  a  precious  casket .^A  written  word 
is  the  choicest  of  relics.^  It  is  something  at  once  more 
intimate  with  us  and  more  universal  than  any  other 
work  of  art.  It  is  the  work  of  art  nearest  to  life  itself.  It 
may  be  translated  into  every  language,  and  not  only  be 
read  but  actually  breathed  from  all  human  lips ;  —  not 
be  represented  on  canvas  or  in  marble  only,  but  be 

/"carved  out  of  the  breath  of  life  itself.   The  symbol  of  an! 

\_ancient  man's  thought  becomes  a  modern  man's  speech. 
Two  thousand  summers  have  imparted  to  the  monu 
ments  of  Grecian  literature,  as  to  her  marbles,  only  a 
maturer  golden  and  autumnal  tint,  for  they  have  car 
ried  their  own  serene  and  celestial  atmosphere  into  all 
lands  to  protect  them  against  the  corrosion  of  time. 
Books  are  the  treasured  wealth  of  the  world  and  the  fit 
inheritance  of  generations  and  nations.  Books,  the  old 
est  and  the  best,  stand  naturally  and  rightfully  on  the 
shelves  of  every  cottage.  They  have  no  cause  of  their 
own  to  plead,  but  while  they  enlighten  and  sustain  the 
reader  his  common  sense  will  not  refuse  them.  Their 
authors  are  a  natural  and  irresistible  aristocracy  in 
every  society,  and,  more  than  kings  or  emperors,  exert 
an  influence  on  mankindj  When  the  illiterate  and  per 
haps  scornful  trader  has  earned  by  enterprise  and  in 
dustry  his  coveted  leisure  and  independence,  and  is 
admitted  to  the  circles  of  wealth  and  fashion,  he  turns 
inevitably  at  last  to  those  still  higher  but  yet  inaccessi 
ble  circles  of  intellect  and  genius,  and  is  sensible  only  of 
the  imperfection  of  his  culture  and  the  vanity  and  in 
sufficiency  of  all  his  riches,  and  further  proves  his  good 


READING  115 

sense  by  the  pains  which  he  takes  to  secure  for  his  chil 
dren  that  intellectual  culture  whose  want  he  so  keenly 
feels;  and  thus  it  is  that  he  becomes  the  founder  of  a 
family. 

Those  who  have  not  learned  to  read  the  ancient 
classics  in  the  language  in  which  they  were  written  must 
have  a  very  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the 
human  race;  for  it  is  remarkable  that  no  transcript  of 
them  has  ever  been  made  into  any  modern  tongue, 
unless  our  civilization  itself  may  be  regarded  as  such  a 
transcript.  Homer  has  never  yet  been  printed  in  Eng 
lish,  nor  ^schylus,  nor  Virgil  even,  —  works  as  refined, 
as  solidly  done,  and  as  beautiful  almost  as  the  morning 
itself;  for  later  writers,  say  what  we  will  of  their  genius, 
have  rarely,  if  ever,  equalled  the  elaborate  beauty  and 
finish  and  the  lifelong  and  heroic  literary  labors  of  the 
ancients.  They  only  talk  of  forgetting  them  who  never 
knew  them.  It  will  be  soon  enough  to  forget  them  when 
we  have  the  learning  and  the  genius  which  will  enable 
us  to  attend  to  and  appreciate  them.  That  age  will  be 
rich  indeed  when  those  relics  which  we  call  Classics, 
and  the  still  older  and  more  than  classic  but  even  less 
known  Scriptures  of  the  nations,  shall  have  still  further 
accumulated,  when  the  Vaticans  shall  be  filled  with 
Vedas  and  Zendavestas  and  Bibles,  with  Homers  and 
Dantes  and  Shakespeares,  and  all  the  centuries  to  come 
shall  have  successively  deposited  their  trophies  in  the 
forum  of  the  world.  By  such  a  pile  we  may  hope  to 
scale  heaven  at  last. 

The  works  of  the  great  poets  have  never  yet  been 
read  by  mankind,  for  only  great  poets  can  read  them. 


116  WALDEN 

They  have  only  been  read  as  the  multitude  read  the 
stars,  at  most  astrologically,  not  astronomically.  Most 
men  have  learned  to  read  to  serve  a  paltry  convenience, 
as  they  have  learned  to  cipher  in  order  to  keep  accounts 
and  not  be  cheated  in  trade;  but  of  reading  as  a  noble 
intellectual  exercise  they  know  little  or  nothing;  yet 
this  only  is  reading,  in  a  high  sense,  not  that  which  lulls 
us  as  a  luxury  and  suffers  the  nobler  faculties  to  sleep 
the  while,  but  what  we  have  to  stand  on  tip-toe  to  read 
and  devote  our  most  alert  and  wakeful  hours  to. 

I  think  that  having  learned  our  letters  we  should  read 
the  best  that  is  in  literature,  and  not  be  forever  repeat 
ing  our  a-b-abs,  and  words  of  one  syllable,  in  the  fourth 
or  fifth  classes,  sitting  on  the  lowest  and  foremost  form 
all  our  lives.  Most  men  are  satisfied  if  they  read  or  hear 
read,  and  perchance  have  been  convicted  by  the  wisdom 
of  one  good  book,  the  Bible,  and  for  the  rest  of  their 
lives  vegetate  and  dissipate  their  faculties  in  what  is 
called  easy  reading.  There  is  a  work  in  several  volumes 
in  our  Circulating  Library  entitled  "  Little  Reading," 
which  I  thought  referred  to  a  town  of  that  name  which 
I  had  not  been  to.  There  are  those  who,  like  cormorants 
and  ostriches,  can  digest  all  sorts  of  this,  even  after  the 
fullest  dinner  of  meats  and  vegetables,  for  they  suffer 
nothing  to  be  wasted.  If  others  are  the  machines  to 
provide  this  provender,  they  are  the  machines  to  read  it. 
They  read  the  nine  thousandth  tale  about  Zebulon  and 
Sophronia,  and  how  they  loved  as  none  had  ever  loved 
before,  and  neither  did  the  course  of  their  true  love  run 
smooth, —  at  any  rate,  how  it  did  run  and  stumble, 
and  get  up  again  and  go  on !  how  some  poor  unfortunate 


READING  117 

got  up  on  to  a  steeple,  who  had  better  never  have  gone 
up  as  far  as  the  belfry;  and  then,  having  needlessly  got 
him  up  there,  the  happy  novelist  rings  the  bell  for  all  the 
world  to  come  together  and  hear,  O  dear!  how  he  did 
get  down  again !  For  my  part,  I  think  that  they  had  bet 
ter  metamorphose  all  such  aspiring  heroes  of  universal 
noveldom  into  man  weather-cocks,  as  they  used  to  put 
heroes  among  the  constellations,  and  let  them  swing 
round  there  till  they  are  rusty,  and  not  come  down  at 
all  to  bother  honest  men  with  their  pranks.  The  next 
time  the  novelist  rings  the  bell  I  will  not  stir  though  the 
meeting-house  burn  down.  "  The  Skip  of  the  Tip-Toe- 
Hop,  a  Romance  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  the  celebrated 
author  of  '  Tittle-Tol-Tan,'  to  appear  in  monthly  parts; 
a  great  rush;  don't  all  come  together."  All  this  they 
read  with  saucer  eyes,  and  erect  and  primitive  curiosity, 
and  with  unwearied  gizzard,  whose  corrugations  even 
yet  need  no  sharpening,  just  as  some  little  four-year-old 
bencher  his  two-cent  gilt-covered  edition  of  Cinderella, 
—  without  any  improvement,  that  I  can  see,  in  the  pro 
nunciation,  or  accent,  or  emphasis,  or  any  more  skill 
in  extracting  or  inserting  the  moral.  The  result  is  dul- 
ness  of  sight,  a  stagnation  of  the  vital  circulations,  and 
a  general  deliquium  and  sloughing  off  of  all  the  intel 
lectual  faculties.  This  sort  of  gingerbread  is  baked 
daily  and  more  sedulously  than  pure  wheat  or  rye-and- 
Indian  in  almost  every  oven,  and  finds  a  surer  market,  v 

The  best  books  are  not  read  even  by  those  who  are 
called  good  readers.    What  does  our  Concord  culture  < 
amount  to  ?   There  is  in  this  town,  with  a  very  few  ex-    v. 
ceptions,  no  taste  for  the  best  or  for  very  good  books 


118  WALDEN 

even  in  English  literature,  whose  words  all  can  read  and 
spell.  Even  the  college-bred  and  so-called  liberally 
educated  men  here  and  elsewhere  have  really  little  or  no 
acquaintance  with  the  English  classics;  and  as  for  the 
recorded  wisdom  of  mankind,  the  ancient  classics  and 
Bibles,  which  are  accessible  to  all  who  will  know  of 
them,  there  are  the  feeblest  efforts  anywhere  made  to 
become  acquainted  with  them.  I  know  a  woodchopper, 
of  middle  age,  who  takes  a  French  paper,  not  for  news 
as  he  says,  for  he  is  above  that,  but  to  "  keep  himself  in 
practice,"  he  being  a  Canadian  by  birth;  and  when  I 
ask  him  what  he  considers  the  best  thing  he  can  do  in 
this  world,  he  says,  beside  this,  to  keep  up  and  add  to 
his  English.  This  is  about  as  much  as  the  college-bred 
generally  do  or  aspire  to  do,  and  they  take  an  English 
paper  for  the  purpose.  One  who  has  just  come  from 
reading  perhaps  one  of  the  best  English  books  will  find 
how  many  with  whom  he  can  converse  about  it  ?  Or 
suppose  he  comes  from  reading  a  Greek  or  Latin  classic 
in  the  original,  whose  praises  are  familiar  even  to  the 
so-called  illiterate ;  he  will  find  nobody  at  all  to  speak  to, 
but  must  keep  silence  about  it.  Indeed,  there  is  hardly 
the  professor  in  our  colleges,  who,  if  he  has  mastered 
the  difficulties  of  the  language,  has  proportionally  mas 
tered  the  difficulties  of  the  wit  and  poetry  of  a  Greek 
poet,  and  has  any  sympathy  to  impart  to  the  alert  and 
heroic  reader;  and  as  for  the  sacred  Scriptures,  or 
Bibles  of  mankind,  who  in  this  town  can  tell  me  even 
their  titles  ?  Most  men  do  not  know  that  any  nation  but 
the  Hebrews  have  had  a  scripture.  A  man,  any  man, 
will  go  considerably  out  of  his  way  to  pick  up  a  silver 


READING  119 

dollar;  but  here  are  golden  words,  which  the  wisest  men 
of  antiquity  have  uttered,  and  whose  worth  the  wise  of 
every  succeeding  age  have  assured  us  of;  —  and  yet  we 
learn  to  read  only  as  far  as  Easy  Reading,  the  primers 
and  class-books,  and  when  we  leave  school,  the  "  Little 
Reading,"  and  story-books,  which  are  for  boys  and  be 
ginners;  and  our  reading,  our  conversation  and  think 
ing,  are  all  on  a  very  low  level,  worthy  only  of  pygmies 
and  manikins. 

I  aspire  to  be  acquainted  with  wiser  men  than  this 
our  Concord  soil  has  produced,  whose  names  are  hardly 
known  here.  Or  shall  I  hear  the  name  of  Plato  and 
never  read  his  book  ?  As  if  Plato  were  my  townsman 
and  I  never  saw  him,  —  my  next  neighbor  and  I  never 
heard  him  speak  or  attended  to  the  wisdom  of  his  words. 
But  how  actually  is  it  ?  His  Dialogues,  which  contain 
what  was  immortal  in  him,  lie  on  the  next  shelf,  and 
yet  I  never  read  them.  We  are  underbred  and  low 
lived  and  illiterate;  and  in  this  respect  I  confess  I  do 
not  make  any  very  broad  distinction  between  the  illiter- 
ateness  of  my  townsman  who  cannot  read  at  all  and  the 
illiterateness  of  him  who  has  learned  to  read  only  what 
is  for  children  and  feeble  intellects.  We  should  be  as 
good  as  the  worthies  of  antiquity,  but  partly  by  first  !, 
knowing  how  good  they  were.  We  are  a  race  of  tit-men, 
and  soar  but  little  higher  in  our  intellectual  flights  than 
the  columns  of  the  daily  paper. 

It  is  not  all  books  that  are  as  dull  as  their  readers) 
There  are  probably  words  addressed  to  our  condition 
exactly,  which,  if  we  could  really  hear  and  understand, 
would  be  more  salutary  than  the  morning  or  the  spring 


\ 


120  WALDEN 

to  our  lives,  and  possibly  put  a  new  aspect  on  the  face 
of  things  for  us.  How  many  a  man  has  dated  a  new 
era  in  his  life  from  the  reading  of  a  book!  The  book 
exists  for  us,  perchance,  which  will  explain  our  miracles 
and  reveal  new  ones.  The  at  present  unutterable  things 
we  may  find  somewhere  uttered.  These  same  questions 
that  disturb  and  puzzle  and  confound  us  have  in  their 
turn  occurred  to  all  the  wise  men;  not  one  has  been 
omitted;  and  each  has  answered  them,  according  to  his 
ability,  by  his  words  and  his  life.  Moreover,  with  wis 
dom  we  shall  learn  liberality.  The  solitary  hired  man 
on  a  farm  in  the  outskirts  of  Concord,  who  has  had  his 
second  birth  and  peculiar  religious  experience,  and  is 
driven  as  he  believes  into  silent  gravity  and  exclusive- 
ness  by  his  faith,  may  think  it  is  not  true ;  but  Zoroaster, 
thousands  of  years  ago,  travelled  the  same  road  and 
had  the  same  experience;  but  he,  being  wise,  knew  it 
to  be  universal,  and  treated  his  neighbors  accordingly, 
and  is  even  said  to  have  invented  and  established  wor 
ship  among  men.  Let  him  humbly  commune  with 
Zoroaster  then,  and  through  the  liberalizing  influence 
of  all  the  worthies,  with  Jesus  Christ  himself,  and  let 
"  our  church  "  go  by  the  board. 

We  boast  that  we  belong  to  the  Nineteenth  Century 
and  are  making  the  most  rapid  strides  of  any  nation. 
But  consider  how  little  this  village  does  for  its  own  cul 
ture.  I  do  not  wish  to  flatter  my  townsmen,  nor  to  be 
flattered  by  them,  for  that  will  not  advance  either  of 
us.  We  need  to  be  provoked,  —  goaded  like  oxen,  as 
we  are,  into  a  trot.  We  have  a  comparatively  decent 
system  of  common  schools,  schools  for  infants  only;  but 


READING  121 

excepting  the  half-starved  Lyceum  in  the  winter,  and 
latterly  the  puny  beginning  of  a  library  suggested  by 
the  State,  no  school  for  ourselves.  We  spend  more  on 
almost  any  article  of  bodily  aliment  or  ailment  than  on 
our  mental  aliment.  It  is  time  that  we  had  uncommon 
schools,  that  we  did  not  leave  off  our  education  when 
we  begin  to  be  men  and  women.  It  is  time  that  villages 
were  universities,  and  their  elder  inhabitants  the  fellows 
of  universities,  with  leisure  —  if  they  are,  indeed,  so  well 
off  —  to  pursue  liberal  studies  the  rest  of  their  lives. 
Shall  the  world  be  confined  to  one  Paris  or  one  Oxford 
forever?  Cannot  students  jjJ^boarded  here  and  get  a 
liberal  education  under  the  sides  of  Concord  ?  Can  we 
not  hire  some  Abelard  to  lecture  to  us  ?  Alas !  what  with 
foddering  the  cattle  and  tending  the  store,  we  are  kept 
from  school  too  long,  and  our  education  is  sadly  neg 
lected.  In  this  country,  the  village  should  in  some  re 
spects  take  the  place  of  the  nobleman  of  Europe.  It 
should  be  the  patron  of  the  fine  arts.  It  is  rich  enough. 
It  wants  only  the  magnanimity  and  refinement.  It  can 
spend  money  enough  on  such  things  as  farmers  and 
traders  value,  but  it  is  thought  Utopian  to  propose  spend 
ing  money  for  things  which  more  intelligent  men  know 
to  be  of  far  more  worth.;  This  town  has  spent  seventeen 
thousand  dollars  on  a  town-house,  thank  fortune  or 
politics,  but  probably  it  will  not  spend  so  much  on  liv 
ing  wit,  the  true  meat  to  put  into  that  shell,  in  a  hundred 
years.  The  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  an 
nually  subscribed  for  a  Lyceum  in  the  winter  is  better 
spent  than  any  other  equal  sum  raised  in  the  town.  If  we 
live  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  why  should  we  not  enjoy 


122  WALDEN 

the  advantages  which  the  Nineteenth  Century  offers  ? 
Why  should  our  life  be  in  any  respect  provincial  ?  If  we 
will  read  newspapers,  why  not  skip  the  gossip  of  Boston 
and  take  the  best  newspaper  in  the  world  at  once  ?  —  not 
be  sucking  the  pap  of  "  neutral  family  "  papers,  or  brows 
ing  "Olive-Branches"  here  in  New  England.  Let^the 
reports  of  all  the  learned  societies  come  to  us,  ana  we 
will  see  if  they  know  anything.  Why  should  we  leave 
it  to  Harper  &  Brothers  and  Redding  &  Co.  to  select 
our  reading  ?  As  the  nobleman  of  cultivated  taste  sur 
rounds  himself  with  what^er  conduces  to  his  culture, 
—  genius  —  learning  —  w^—  books — paintings  —  stat 
uary — music — philosophical  instruments,  and  the  like; 
so  let  the  village  do,  —  not  stop  short  at  a  pedagogue, 
a  parson,  a  sexton,  a  parish  library,  and  three  select 
men,  because  our  Pilgrim  forefathers  got  through  a  cold 
winter  once  on  a  bleak  rock  with  these.  To  act  col 
lectively  is  according  to  the  spirit  of  our  institutions; 
and  I  am  confident  that,  as  our  circumstances  are  more 
flourishing,  our  means  are  greater  than  the  nobleman's. 
New  England  can  hire  all  the  wise  men  in  the  world  to 
come  and  teach  her,  and  board  them  round  the  while, 
and  not  be  provincial  at  all.  That  is  the  uncommon 
school  we  want.  Instead  of  noblemen,  let  us  have  noble 
villages  of  men.  If  it  is  necessary,  omit  one  bridge  over 
the  river,  go  round  a  little  there,  and  throw  one  arch 
at  least  over  the  darker  gulf  of  ignorance  which  sur 
rounds  us. 


IV 
SOUNDS 

Bur  while  we  are  confined  to  books,  though  the  most 
select  and  classic,  and  read  only  particular  written  lan 
guages,  which  are  themselves  but  dialects  and  provincial, 
we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  the  language  which  all 
things  and  events  speak  without  metaphor,  which  alone 
is  copious  and  standard.  Much  is  published,  but  little 
printed.  The  rays  which  stream  through  the  shutter 
will  be  no  longer  remembered  when  the  shutter  is  wholly 
removed.  No  method  nor  discipline  can  supersede  the 
necessity  of  being  forever  on  the  alert.  What  is  a  course 
of  history  or  philosophy,  or  poetry,  no  matter  how  well 
selected,  or  the  best  society,  or  the  most  admirable 
routine  of  life,  compared  with  the  discipline  of  looking 
always  at  what  is  to  be  seen  ?  Will  you  be  a  reader, 
a  student  merely,  or  a  seer  ?  Read  your  fate,  see  what  is 
before  you,  and  walk  on  into  futurity. 

I  did  not  read  books  the  first  summer;  I  hoed  beans. 
Nay,  I  often  did  better  than  this.  There  were  times 
when  I  could  not  afford  to  sacrifice  the  bloom  of  the 
present  moment  to  any  work,  whether  of  the  head  or 
hands.  I  love  a  broad  margin  to  my  life.  Sometimes, 
in  a  summer  morning,  having  taken  my  accustomed 
bath,  I  sat  in  my  sunny  doorway  from  sunrise  till  noon, 
rapt  in  a  revery,  amidst  the  pines  and  hickories  and 


124  WALDEN 

sumachs,  in  undisturbed  solitude  and  stillness,  while 
the  birds  sang  around  or  flitted  noiseless  through  the 
house,  until  by  the  sun  falling  in  at  my  west  window, 
or  the  noise  of  some  traveller's  wagon  on  the  distant 
highway,  I  was  reminded  of  the  lapse  of  time.  I  grew 
in  those  seasons  like  corn  in  the  night,  and  they  were 
far  better  than  any  work  of  the  hands  would  have  been. 
They  were  not  time  subtracted  from  my  life,  but  so 
much  over  and  above  my  usual  allowance.  I  realized 
what  the  Orientals  mean  by  contemplation  and  the 
forsaking  of  works.  For  the  most  part,  I  minded  not 
how  the  hours  went.  The  day  advanced  as  if  to  light 
some  work  of  mine;  it  was  morning,  and  lo,  now  it  is 
evening,  and  nothing  memorable  is  accomplished. 
Instead  of  singing  like  the  birds,  I  silently  smiled  at  my 
incessant  good  fortune.  As  the  sparrow  had  its  trill, 
sitting  on  the  hickory  before  my  door,  so  had  I  my 
chuckle  or  suppressed  warble  which  he  might  hear  out 
of  my  nest.  My  days  were  not  days  of  the  week,  bear 
ing  the  stamp  of  any  heathen  deity,  nor  were  they 
minced  into  hours  and  fretted  by  the  ticking  of  a  clock; 
for  I  lived  like  the  Puri  Indians,  of  whom  it  is  said  that 
"for  yesterday,  to-day,  and  to-morrow  they  have  only 
one  word,  and  they  express  the  variety  of  meaning  by 
pointing  backward  for  yesterday,  forward  for  to-mor 
row,  and  overhead  for  the  passing  day."  This  was 
sheer  idleness  to  my  fellow-townsmen,  no  doubt;  but 
if  the  birds  and  flowers  had  tried  me  by  their  standard, 
I  should  not  have  been  found  wanting.  A  man  must 
find  his  occasions  in  himself,  it  is  true.  The  natural  day 
is  very  calm,  and  will  hardly  reprove  his  indolence. 


SOUNDS  125 

I  had  this  advantage,  at  least,  in  my  mode  of  life, 
over  those  who  were  obliged  to  look  abroad  for  amuse 
ment,  to  society  and  the  theatre,  that  my  life  itself  was 
become  my  amusement  and  never  ceased  to  be  novel. 
It  was  a  drama  of  many  scenes  and  without  an  end.  If 
we  were  always,  indeed,  getting  our  living,  and  regulat 
ing  our  lives  according  to  the  last  and  best  mode  we 
had  learned,  we  should  never  be  troubled  with  ennui. 
Follow  your  genius  closely  enough,  and  it  will  not  fail 
to  show  you  a  fresh  prospect  every  hour.  Housework 
was  a  pleasant  pastime.  When  my  floor  was  dirty,  I  rose 
early,  and,  setting  all  my  furniture  out  of  doors  on  the 
grass,  bed  and  bedstead  making  but  one  budget,  dashed 
water  on  the  floor,  and  sprinkled  white  sand  from  the 
pond  on  it,  and  then  with  a  broom  scrubbed  it  clean 
and  white;"  and  by  the  time  the  villagers  had  broken 
their  fast  the  morning  sun  had  dried  my  house  suffi 
ciently  to  allow  me  to  move  in  again,  and  my  medita 
tions  were  almost  uninterrupted.  It  was  pleasant  to  see 
my  whole  household  effects  out  on  the  grass,  making  a 
little  pile  like  a  gypsy's  pack,  and  my  three-legged  table, 
from  which  I  did  not  remove  the  books  and  pen  and 
ink,  standing  amid  the  pines  and  hickories.  They 
seemed  glad  to  get  out  themselves,  and  as  if  unwilling 
to  be  brought  in.  I  was  sometimes  tempted  to  stretch 
an  awning  over  them  and  take  my  seat  there.  It  was 
worth  the  while  to  see  the  sun  shine  on  these  things,  and 
hear  the  free  wind  blow  on  them ;  so  much  more  inter 
esting  most  familiar  objects  look  out  of  doors  than  in 
the  house.  A  bird  sits  on  the  next  bough,  life-everlasting 
grows  under  the  table,  and  blackberry  vines  run  round 


126  WALDEN 

its  legs;  pine  cones,  chestnut  burs,  and  strawberry 
leaves  are  strewn  about.  It  looked  as  if  this  was  the 
way  these  forms  came  to  be  transferred  to  our  furniture, 
to  tables,  chairs,  and  bedsteads,  —  because  they  once 
stood  in  their  midst. 

My  house  was  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  immediately  on 
the  edge  of  the  larger  wood,  in  the  midst  of  a  young 
forest  of  pitch  pines  and  hickories,  and  half  a  dozen 
rods  from  the  pond,  to  which  a  narrow  footpath  led 
down  the  hill.  In  my  front  yard  grew  the  strawberry, 
blackberry,  and  life-everlasting,  Johns  wort  and  golden- 
rod,  shrub  oaks  and  sand  cherry,  blueberry  and  ground 
nut.  Near  the  end  of  May,  the  sand  cherry  (Cerasus 
pumila)  adorned  the  sides  of  the  path  with  its  delicate 
flowers  arranged  in  umbels  cylindrically  about  its  short 
stems,  which  last,  in  the  fall,  weighed  down  with  good- 
sized  and  handsome  cherries,  fell  over  in  wreaths  like 
rays  on  every  side.  I  tasted  them  out  of  compliment 
to  Nature,  though  they  were  scarcely  palatable.  The 
sumach  (Rhus  glabra)  grew  luxuriantly  about  the 
house,  pushing  up  through  the  embankment  which  I 
had  made,  and  growing  five  or  six  feet  the  first  season. 
Its  broad  pinnate  tropical  leaf  was  pleasant  though 
strange  to  look  on.  The  large  buds,  suddenly  pushing 
out  late  in  the  spring  from  dry  sticks  which  had  seemed 
to  be  dead,  developed  themselves  as  by  magic  into 
graceful  green  and  tender  boughs,  an  inch  in  diameter; 
and  sometimes,  as  I  sat  at  my  window,  so  heedlessly 
did  they  grow  and  tax  their  weak  joints,  I  heard  a  fresh 
and  tender  bough  suddenly  fall  like  a  fan  to  the  ground, 
when  there  was  not  a  breath  of  air  stirring,  broken  off 


SOUNDS  127 

by  its  own  weight.  In  August,  the  large  masses  of  ber 
ries,  which,  when  in  flower,  had  attracted  many  wild 
bees,  gradually  assumed  their  bright  velvety  crimson 
hue,  and  by  their  weight  again  bent  down  and  broke  the 
tender  limbs. 

As  I  sit  at  my  window  this  summer  afternoon,  hawks 
are  circling  about  my  clearing;  the  tantivy  of  wild 
pigeons,  flying  by  twos  and  threes  athwart  my  view,  or 
perching  restless  on  the  white  pine  boughs  behind  my 
house,  gives  a  voice  to  the  air;  a  fish  hawk  dimples  the 
glassy  surface  of  the  pond  and  brings  up  a  fish ;  a  mink 
steals  out  of  the  marsh  before  my  door  and  seizes  a  frog 
by  the  shore ;  the  sedge  is  bending  under  the  weight  of 
the  reed-birds  flitting  hither  and  thither;  and  for  the 
last  half -hour  I  have  heard  the  rattle  of  railroad  cars, 
now  dying  away  and  then  reviving  like  the  beat  of  a 
partridge,  conveying  travellers  from  Boston  to  the  coun 
try.  For  I  did  not  live  so  out  of  the  world  as  that  boy 
who,  as  I  hear,  was  put  out  to  a  farmer  in  the  east  part 
of  the  town,  but  ere  long  ran  away  and  came  home 
again,  quite  down  at  the  heel  and  homesick.  He  had 
never  seen  such  a  dull  and  out-of-the-way  place;  the 
folks  were  all  gone  off;  why,  you  could  n't  even  hear 
the  whistle !  I  doubt  if  there  is  such  a  place  in  Massa 
chusetts  now :  — 

"In  truth, ^our  village  has  become  a  butt 
For  one  of  those  fleet  railroad  shafts,  and  o'er 
Our  peaceful  plain  its  soothing  sound  is  —  Concord." 

The  Fitchburg  Railroad  touches  the  pond  about  a 
hundred  rods  south  of  where  I  dwell.  I  usually  go  to  the 


128  WALDEN 

village  along  its  causeway,  and  am,  as  it  were,  related  to 
society  by  this  link.  The  men  on  the  freight  trains,  who 
go  over  the  whole  length  of  the  road,  bow  to  me  as  to  an 
old  acquaintance,  they  pass  me  so  often,  and  apparently 
they  take  me  for  an  employee ;  and  so  I  am.  I  too  would 
fain  be  a  track-repairer  somewhere  in  the  orbit  of  the 
earth. 

The  whistle  of  the  locomotive  penetrates  my  woods 
summer  and  winter,  sounding  like  the  scream  of  a  hawk 
sailing  over  some  farmer's  yard,  informing  me  that  many 
restless  city  merchants  are  arriving  within  the  circle  of 
the  town,  or  adventurous  country  traders  from  the  other 
side.  As  they  come  under  one  horizon,  they  shout  their 
warning  to  get  off  the  track  to  the  other,  heard  some 
times  through  the  circles  of  two  towns.  Here  come  your 
groceries,  country;  your  rations,  countrymen!  Nor  is 
there  any  man  so  independent  on  his  farm  that  he  can 
say  them  nay.  And  here  5s  your  pay  for  them !  screams 
the  countryman's  whistle;  timber  like  long  battering- 
rams  going  twenty  miles  an  hour  against  the  city's  walls, 
and  chairs  enough  to  seat  all  the  weary  and  heavy-laden 
that  dwell  within  them.  With  such  huge  and  lumbering 
civility  the  country  hands  a  chair  to  the  city.  All  the  In 
dian  huckleberry  hills  are  stripped,  all  the  cranberry 
meadows  are  raked  into  the  city.  Up  comes  the  cotton, 
down  goes  the  woven  cloth;  up  comes  the  silk,  down 
goes  the  woollen;  up  come  the  books,  but  down  goes 
the  wit  that  writes  them. 

When  I  meet  the  engine  with  its  train  of  cars  moving 
off  with  planetary  motion,  —  or,  rather,  like  a  comet,  for 
the  beholder  knows  not  if  with  that  velocity  and  with  that 


SOUNDS  129 

direction  it  will  ever  revisit  this  system,  since  its  orbit 
does  not  look  like  a  returning  curve,  —  with  its  steam 
cloud  like  a  banner  streaming  behind  in  golden  and 
silver  wreaths,  like  many  a  downy  cloud  which  I  have 
seen,  high  in  the  heavens,  unfolding  its  masses  to  the 
light,  —  as  if  this  travelling  demigod,  this  cloud-com 
peller,  would  ere  long  take  the  sunset  sky  for  the  livery 
of  his  train ;  when  I  hear  the  iron  horse  make  the  hills 
echo  with  his  snort  like  thunder,  shaking  the  earth  with 
his  feet,  and  breathing  fire  and  smoke  from  his  nostrils 
(what  kind  of  winged  horse  or  fiery  dragon  they  will  put 
into  the  new  Mythology  I  don't  know),  it  seems  as  if 
the  earth  had  got  a  race  now  worthy  to  inhabit  it.  If  all 
were  as  it  seems,  and  men  made  the  elements  their 
servants  for  noble  ends!  If  the  cloud  that  hangs  over 
the  engine  were  the  perspiration  of  heroic  deeds,  or  as 
beneficent  as  that  which  floats  over  the  farmer's  fields, 
then  the  elements  and  Nature  herself  would  cheerfully 
accompany  men  on  their  errands  and  be  their  escort. 

I  watch  the  passage  of  the  morning  cars  with  the  same 
feeling  that  I  do  the  rising  of  the  sun,  which  is  hardly 
more  regular.  Their  train  of  clouds  stretching  far  be 
hind  and  rising  higher  and  higher,  going  to  heaven  while 
the  cars  are  going  to  Boston,  conceals  the  sun  for  a 
minute  and  casts  my  distant  field  into  the  shade,  a  ce 
lestial  train  beside  which  the  petty  train  of  cars  which 
hugs  the  earth  is  but  the  barb  of  the  spear.  The  stabler 
of  the  iron  horse  was  up  early  this  winter  morning  by  the 
light  of  the  stars  amid  the  mountains,  to  fodder  and  har 
ness  his  steed.  Fire,  too,  was  awakened  thus  early  to 
put  the  vital  heat  in  him  and  get  him  off.  If  the  enter- 


130  WALDEN 

prise  were  as  innocent  as  it  is  early!  If  the  snow  lies 
deep,  they  strap  on  his  snowshoes,  and,  with  the  giant 
plow,  plow  a  furrow  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea 
board,  in  which  the  cars,  like  a  following  drill-barrow, 
sprinkle  all  the  restless  men  and  floating  merchandise 
in  the  country  for  seed.  All  day  the  fire-steed  flies  over 
the  country,  stopping  only  that  his  master  may  rest,  and 
I  am  awakened  by  his  tramp  and  defiant  snort  at  mid 
night,  when  in  some  remote  glen  in  the  woods  he  fronts 
the  elements  incased  in  ice  and  snow ;  and  he  will  reach 
his  stall  only  with  the  morning  star,  to  start  once  more 
on  his  travels  without  rest  or  slumber.  Or  perchance,  at 
evening,  I  hear  him  in  his  stable  blowing  off  the  super 
fluous  energy  of  the  day,  that  he  may  calm  his  nerves 
and  cool  his  liver  and  brain  for  a  few  hours  of  iron  slum 
ber.  If  the  enterprise  were  as  heroic  and  commanding 
as  it  is  protracted  and  unwearied! 

Far  through  unfrequented  woods  on  the  confines  of 
towns,  where  once  only  the  hunter  penetrated  by  day, 
in  the  darkest  night  dart  these  bright  saloons  without 
the  knowledge  of  their  inhabitants;  this  moment  stop 
ping  at  some  brilliant  station-house  in  town  or  city, 
where  a  social  crowd  is  gathered,  the  next  in  the  Dismal 
Swamp,  scaring  the  owl  and  fox.  The  startings  and  ar 
rivals  of  the  cars  are  now  the  epochs  in  the  village  day. 
They  go  and  come  with  such  regularity  and  precision, 
and  their  whistle  can  be  heard  so  far,  that  the  farmers 
set  their  clocks  by  them,  and  thus  one  well-conducted 
institution  regulates  a  whole  country.  Have  not  men 
improved  somewhat  in  punctuality  since  the  railroad 
was  invented  ?  Do  they  not  talk  and  think  faster  in  the 


SOUNDS  131 

depot  than  they  did  in  the  stage-office  ?  There  is  some 
thing  electrifying  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  former  place. 
I  have  been  astonished  at  the  miracles  it  has  wrought; 
that  some  of  my  neighbors,  who,  I  should  have  prophe 
sied,  once  for  all,  would  never  get  to  Boston  by  so  prompt 
a  conveyance,  are  on  hand  when  the  bell  rings.  To  do 
things  "  railroad  fashion  "  is  now  the  byword ;  and  it  is 
worth  the  while  to  be  warned  so  often  and  so  sincerely 
by  any  power  to  get  off  its  track.  There  is  no  stopping 
to  read  the  riot  act,  no  firing  over  the  heads  of  the  mob, 
in  this  case.  We  have  constructed  a  fate,  an  Atropos, 
that  never  turns  aside.  (Let  that  be  the  name  of  your 
engine.)  Men  are  advertised  that  at  a  certain  hour  and 
minute  these  bolts  will  be  shot  toward  particular  points 
of  the  compass ;  yet  it  interferes  with  no  man's  business, 
and  the  children  go  to  school  on  the  other  track.  We  live 
the  steadier  for  it.  We  are  all  educated  thus  to  be  sons 
of  Tell.  The  air  is  full  of  invisible  bolts.  Every  path  but 
your  own  is  the  path  of  fate.  Keep  on  your  own  track, 
then. 

What  recommends  commerce  to  me  is  its  enterprise 
and  bravery.  It  does  not  clasp  its  hands  and  pray  to 
Jupiter.  I  see  these  men  every  day  go  about  their  busi 
ness  with  more  or  less  courage  and  content,  doing  more 
even  than  they  suspect,  and  perchance  better  employed 
than  they  could  have  consciously  devised.  I  am  less 
affected  by  their  heroism  who  stood  up  for  half  an  hour 
in  the  front  line  at  Buena  Vista,  than  by  the  steady  and 
cheerful  valor  of  the  men  who  inhabit  the  snow-plow 
for  their  winter  quarters;  who  have  not  merely  the 
three-o'-clock-in-the-morning  courage,  which  Bonaparte 


132  WALDEN 

thought  was  the  rarest,  but  whose  courage  does  not  go 
to  rest  so  early,  who  go  to  sleep  only  when  the  storm 
sleeps  or  the  sinews  of  their  iron  steed  are  frozen.  On 
this  morning  of  the  Great  Snow,  perchance,  which  is 
still  raging  and  chilling  men's  blood,  I  hear  the  muffled 
tone  of  their  engine  bell  from  out  the  fog  bank  of  their 
chilled  breath,  which  announces  that  the  cars  are  com 
ing,  without  long  delay,  notwithstanding  the  veto  of  a 
New  England  northeast  snow-storm,  and  I  behold  the 
plowmen  covered  with  snow  and  rime,  their  heads  peer 
ing  above  the  mould-board  which  is  turning  down  other 
than  daisies  and  the  nests  of  field  mice,  like  bowlders 
of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  that  occupy  an  outside  place  in 
the  universe. 

Commerce  is  unexpectedly  confident  and  serene,  alert, 
adventurous,  and  unwearied.  It  is  very  natural  in  its 
methods  withal,  far  more  so  than  many  fantastic  enter 
prises  and  sentimental  experiments,  and  hence  its  sin 
gular  success.  I  am  refreshed  and  expanded  when  the 
freight  train  rattles  past  me,  and  I  smell  the  stores  which 
go  dispensing  their  odors  all  the  way  from  Long  Wharf 
to  Lake  Champlain,  reminding  me  of  foreign  parts,  of 
coral  reefs,  and  Indian  oceans,  and  tropical  climes,  and 
the  extent  of  the  globe.  I  feel  more  like  a  citizen  of  the 
world  at  the  sight  of  the  palm-leaf  which  will  cover  so 
many  flaxen  New  England  heads  the  next  summer,  the 
Manilla  hemp  and  cocoanut  husks,  the  old  junk,  gunny 
bags,  scrap  iron,  and  rusty  nails.  This  carload  of  torn 
sails  is  more  legible  and  interesting  now  than  if  they 
should  be  wrought  into  paper  and  printed  books.  Who 
can  write  so  graphically  the  history  of  the  storms  they 


SOUNDS  133 

have  weathered  as  these  rents  have  done?  They  are 
proof-sheets  which  need  no  correction.  Here  goes  lum 
ber  from  the  Maine  woods,  which  did  not  go  out  to  sea 
in  the  last  freshet,  risen  four  dollars  on  the  thousand  be 
cause  of  what  did  go  out  or  was  split  up;  pine,  spruce, 
cedar,  —  first,  second,  third,  and  fourth  qualities,  so 
lately  all  of  one  quality,  to  wave  over  the  bear,  and 
moose,  and  caribou.  Next  rolls  Thomaston  lime,  a 
prime  lot,  which  will  get  far  among  the  hills  before  it 
gets  slacked.  These  rags  in  bales,  of  all  hues  and  quali 
ties,  the  lowest  condition  to  which  cotton  and  linen  de 
scend,  the  final  result  of  dress,  —  of  patterns  which  are 
now  no  longer  cried  up,  unless  it  be  in  Milwaukee,  as 
those  splendid  articles,  English,  French,  or  American 
prints,  ginghams,  muslins,  etc.,  gathered  from  all  quar 
ters  both  of  fashion  and  poverty,  going  to  become  paper 
of  one  color  or  a  few  shades  only,  on  which,  forsooth,  will 
be  written  tales  of  real  life,  high  and  low,  and  founded 
on  fact!  This  closed  car  smells  of  salt  fish,  the  strong 
New  England  and  commercial  scent,  reminding  me  of 
the  Grand  Banks  and  the  fisheries.  Who  has  not  seen 
a  salt  fish,  thoroughly  cured  for  this  world,  so  that  no 
thing  can  spoil  it,  and  putting  the  perseverance  of  the 
saints  to  the  blush  ?  with  which  you  may  sweep  or  pave 
the  streets,  and  split  your  kindlings,  and  the  teamster 
shelter  himself  and  his  lading  against  sun,  wind,  and 
rain  behind  it,  —  and  the  trader,  as  a  Concord  trader 
once  did,  hang  it  up  by  his  door  for  a  sign  when  he  com 
mences  business,  until  at  last  his  oldest  customer  cannot 
tell  surely  whether  it  be  animal,  vegetable,  or  mineral, 
and  yet  it  shall  be  as  pure  as  a  snowflake,  and  if  it  be 


134  WALDEN 

put  into  a  pot  and  boiled,  will  come  out  an  excellent  dun- 
fish  for  a  Saturday's  dinner.  Next  Spanish  hides,  with 
the  tails  still  preserving  their  twist  and  the  angle  of  ele 
vation  they  had  when  the  oxen  that  wore  them  were 
careering  over  the  pampas  of  the  Spanish  Main,  —  a  type 
of  all  obstinacy,  and  evincing  how  almost  hopeless  and 
incurable  are  all  constitutional  vices.  I  confess,  that 
practically  speaking,  when  I  have  learned  a  man's  real 
disposition,  I"  have  no  hopes  of  changing  it  for  the  better 
or  worse  in  this  state  of  existence.  As  the  Orientals  say, 
"A  cur's  tail  may  be  warmed,  and  pressed,  and  bound 
round  with  ligatures,  and  after  a  twelve  years'  labor  be 
stowed  upon  it,  still  it  will  retain  its  natural  form."  The 
only  effectual  cure  for  such  inveteracies  as  these  tails 
exhibit  is  to  make  glue  of  them,  which  I  believe  is  what  is 
usually  done  with  them,  and  then  they  will  stay  put  and 
stick.  Here  is  a  hogshead  of  molasses  or  of  brandy  di 
rected  to  John  Smith,  Cuttings  ville,  Vermont,  some  trader 
among  the  Green  Mountains,  who  imports  for  the  farmers 
near  his  clearing,  and  now  perchance  stands  over  his 
bulkhead  and  thinks  of  the  last  arrivals  on  the  coast,  how 
they  may  affect  the  price  for  him,  telling  his  customers 
this  moment,  as  he  has  told  them  twenty  times  before 
this  morning,  that  he  expects  some  by  the  next  train  of 
prime  quality.  It  is  advertised  in  the  Cuttingsville 
Times. 

While  these  things  go  up  other  things  come  down. 
Warned  by  the  whizzing  sound,  I  look  up  from  my  book 
and  see  some  tall  pine,  hewn  on  far  northern  hills,  which 
has  winged  its  way  over  the  Green  Mountains  and  the 
Connecticut,  shot  like  an  arrow  through  the  township 


SOUNDS  135 

within  ten  minutes,  and  scarce  another  eye  beholds  it; 

going 

"to  be  the  mast 
Of  some  great  ammiral." 

And  hark !  here  comes  the  cattle-train  bearing  the  cattle 
of  a  thousand  hills,  sheepcots,  stables,  and  cow-yards  in 
the  air,  drovers  with  their  sticks,  and  shepherd  boys  in 
the  midst  of  their  flocks,  all  but  the  mountain  pastures, 
whirled  along  like  leaves  blown  from  the  mountains  by 
the  September  gales.  The  air  is  filled  with  the  bleating 
of  calves  and  sheep,  and  the  hustling  of  oxen,  as  if  a  pas 
toral  valley  were  going  by.  When  the  old  bell-wether  at 
the  head  rattles  his  bell,  the  mountains  do  indeed  skip 
like  rams  and  the  little  hills  like  lambs.  A  carload  of 
drovers,  too,  in  the  midst,  on  a  level  with  their  droves 
now,  their  vocation  gone,  but  still  clinging  to  their  use 
less  sticks  as  their  badge  of  office.  But  their  dogs,  where 
are  they?  It  is  a  stampede  to  them;  they  are  quite 
thrown  out;  they  have  lost  the  scent.  Methinks  I  hear 
them  barking  behind  the  Peterboro'  Hills,  or  panting  up 
the  western  slope  of  the  Green  Mountains.  They  will  not 
be  in  at  the  death.  Their  vocation,  too,  is  gone.  Their 
fidelity  and  sagacity  are  below  par  now.  They  will  slink 
back  to  their  kennels  in  disgrace,  or  perchance  run  wild 
and  strike  a  league  with  the  wolf  and  the  fox.  So  is 
your  pastoral  life  whirled  past  and  away.  But  the  bell 
rings,  and  I  must  get  off  the  track  and  let  the  cars  go 
by;- 

What's  the  railroad  to  me? 
I  never  go  to  see 
Where  it  ends. 


136  WALDEN 

It  fills  a  few  hollows, 

And  makes  banks  for  the  swallows, 

It  sets  the  sand  a-blowing, 

And  the  blackberries  a-growing, 

but  I  cross  it  like  a  cart-path  in  the  woods.  I  will  not 
have  my  eyes  put  out  and  my  ears  spoiled  by  its  smoke 
and  steam  and  hissing. 

Now  that  the  cars  are  gone  by  and  all  the  restless 
world  with  them,  and  the  fishes  in  the  pond  no  longer 
feel  their  rumbling,  I  am  more  alone  than  ever.  For  the 
rest  of  the  long  afternoon,  perhaps,  my  meditations  are 
interrupted  only  by  the  faint  rattle  of  a  carriage  or  team 
along  the  distant  highway. 

Sometimes,  on  Sundays,  I  heard  the  bells,  the  Lincoln, 
Acton,  Bedford,  or  Concord  bell,  when  the  wind  was 
favorable,  a  faint,  sweet,  and,  as  it  were,  natural  melody, 
worth  importing  into  the  wilderness.  At  a  sufficient  dis 
tance  over  the  woods  this  sound  acquires  a  certain  vi 
bratory  hum,  as  if  the  pine  needles  in  the  horizon  were 
the  strings  of  a  harp  which  it  swept.  All  sound  heard 
at  the  greatest  possible  distance  produces  one  and  the 
same  effect,  a  vibration  of  the  universal  lyre,  just  as 
the  intervening  atmosphere  makes  a  distant  ridge  of 
earth  interesting  to  our  eyes  by  the  azure  tint  it  imparts 
to  it.  There  came  to  me  in  this  case  a  melody  which 
the  air  had  strained,  and  which  had  conversed  with 
every  leaf  and  needle  of  the  wood,  that  portion  of  the 
sound  which  the  elements  had  taken  up  and  modulated 
and  echoed  from  vale  to  vale.  The  echo  is,  to  some 
extent,  an  original  sound,  and  therein  is  the  magic  and 


SOUNDS  137 

charm  of  it.  It  is  not  merely  a  repetition  of  what  was 
worth  repeating  in  the  bell,  but  partly  the  voice  of  the 
wood;  the  same  trivial  words  and  notes  sung  by  a 
wood-nymph. 

At  evening,  the  distant  lowing  of  some  cow  in  the  ho 
rizon  beyond  the  woods  sounded  sweet  and  melodious, 
and  at  first  I  would  mistake  it  for  the  voices  of  certain 
minstrels  by  whom  I  was  sometimes  serenaded,  who 
might  be  straying  over  hill  and  dale ;  but  soon  I  was  not 
unpleasantly  disappointed  when  it  was  prolonged  into 
the  cheap  and  natural  music  of  the  cow.  I  do  not  mean 
to  be  satirical,  but  to  express  my  appreciation  of  those 
youths'  singing,  when  I  state  that  I  perceived  clearly  that 
it  was  akin  to  the  music  of  the  cow,  and  they  were  at 
length  one  articulation  of  Nature. 

Regularly  at  half -past  seven,  in  one  part  of  the  summer, 
after  the  evening  train  had  gone  by,  the  whip-poor-wills 
chanted  their  vespers  for  half  an  hour,  sitting  on  a  stump 
by  my  door,  or  upon  the  ridge-pole  of  the  house.  They 
would  begin  to  sing  almost  with  as  much  precision  as  a 
clock,  within  five  minutes  of  a  particular  time,  referred 
to  the  setting  of  the  sun,  every  evening.  I  had  a  rare  op 
portunity  to  become  acquainted  with  their  habits.  Some 
times  I  heard  four  or  five  at  once  in  different  parts  of  the 
wood,  by  accident  one  a  bar  behind  another,  and  so  near 
me  that  I  distinguished  not  only  the  cluck  after  each  note, 
but  often  that  singular  buzzing  sound  like  a  fly  in  a 
spider's  web,  only  proportionally  louder.  Sometimes 
one  would  circle  round  and  round  me  in  the  woods  a  few 
feet  distant  as  if  tethered  by  a  string,  when  probably  I 
was  near  its  eggs.  They  sang  at  intervals  throughout  the 


138  WALDEN 

night,  and  were  again  as  musical  as  ever  just  before  and 
about  dawn. 

When  other  birds  are  still,  the  screech  owls  take  up 
*he  strain,  like  mourning  women  their  ancient  u-lu-lu. 
Their  dismal  scream  is  truly  Ben  Jonsonian.  Wise  mid 
night  hags !  It  is  no  honest  and  blunt  tu-whit  tu-who  of 
the  poets,  but,  without  jesting,  a  most  solemn  graveyard 
ditty,  the  mutual  consolations  of  suicide  lovers  remember 
ing  the  pangs  and  the  delights  of  supernal  love  in  the  in 
fernal  groves.  Yet  I  love  to  hear  their  wailing,  their  dole 
ful  responses,  trilled  along  the  woodside ;  reminding  me 
sometimes  of  music  and  singing  birds;  as  if  it  were  the 
dark  and  tearful  side  of  music,  the  regrets  and  sighs  that 
would  fain  be  sung.  They  are  the  spirits,  the  low  spirits 
and  melancholy  forebodings,  of  fallen  souls  that  once  in 
human  shape  night-walked  the  earth  and  did  the  deeds 
of  darkness,  now  expiating  their  sins  with  their  wailing 
hymns  or  threnodies  in  the  scenery  of  their  transgressions. 
They  give  me  a  new  sense  of  the  variety  and  capacity  of 
that  nature  which  is  our  common  dwelling.  Oh-o-o-o-o 
that  I  never  had  been  bor-r-r-r-n !  sighs  one  on  this  side 
of  the  pond,  and  circles  with  the  restlessness  of  despair 
to  some  new  perch  on  the  gray  oaks.  Then  —  that  I 
never  had  been  bor-r-r-r-n  !  echoes  another  on  the  farther 
side  with  tremulous  sincerity,  and  —  bor-r-r-r-n  I  comes 
faintly  from  far  in  the  Lincoln  woods. 

I  was  also  serenaded  by  a  hooting  owl.  Near  at  hand 
you  could  fancy  it  the  most  melancholy  sound  in  Nature, 
as  if  she  meant  by  this  to  stereotype  and  make  perma 
nent  in  her  choir  the  dying  moans  of  a  human  being,  — 
some  poor  weak  relic  of  mortality  who  has  left  hope  be- 


SOUNDS  139 

hind,  and  howls  like  an  animal,  yet  with  human  sobs, 
on  entering  the  dark  valley,  made  more  awful  by  a  cer 
tain  gurgling  melodiousness,  —  I  find  myself  beginning 
with  the  letters  gl  when  I  try  to  imitate  it,  —  expressive 
of  a  mind  which  has  reached  the  gelatinous,  mildew) 
stage  in  the  mortification  of  all  healthy  and  courageous 
thought.  It  reminded  me  of  ghouls  and  idiots  and  insane 
bowlings.  But  now  one  answers  from  far  woods  in  a 
strain  made  really  melodious  by  distance,  —  H oo  hoo 
hoo,  hoorer  hoo;  and  indeed  for  the  most  part  it  sug 
gested  only  pleasing  associations.whether  heard  by  day 
or  night,  summer  or  winter.  £*5£,Vv^  ' 

I  rejoice  that  there  are  owls.  Let  them  do  the  idiotic 
and  maniacal  hooting  for  men.  It  is  a  sound  admirably 
suited  to  swamps  and  twilight  woods  which  no  day  il 
lustrates,  suggesting  a  vast  and  undeveloped  nature 
which  men  have  not  recognized.  They  represent  the 
stark  twilight  and  unsatisfied  thoughts  which  all  have. 
All  day  the  sun  has  shone  on  the  surface  of  some  savage 
swamp,  where  the  single  spruce  stands  hung  with  usnea 
lichens,  and  small  hawks  circulate  above,  and  the  chick 
adee  lisps  amid  the  evergreens,  and  the  partridge  and 
rabbit  skulk  beneath ;  but  now  a  more  dismal  and  fitting 
day  dawns,  and  a  different  race  of  creatures  awakes  to 
express  the  meaning  of  Nature  there. 

Late  in  the  evening  I  heard  the  distant  rumbling  of 
wagons  over  bridges,  —  a  sound  heard  farther  than  al 
most  any  other  at  night,  —  the  baying  of  dogs,  and 
sometimes  again  the  lowing  of  some  disconsolate  cow 
in  a  distant  barn-yard.  In  the  meanwhile  all  the  shore 
rang  with  the  trump  of  bullfrogs,  the  sturdy  spirits  of 


140  WALDEN 

ancient  wine-bibbers  and  wassailers,  still  unrepentant, 
trying  to  sing  a  catch  in  their  Stygian  lake,  —  if  the 
Walden  nymphs  will  pardon  the  comparison,  for 
though  there  are  almost  no  weeds,  there  are  frogs  there, 
—  who  would  fain  keep  up  the  hilarious  rules  of  their 
old  festal  tables,  though  their  voices  have  waxed  hoarse 
and  solemnly  grave,  mocking  at  mirth,  and  the  wine 
has  lost  its  flavor,  and  become  only  liquor  to  distend 
their  paunches,  and  sweet  intoxication  never  comes  to 
drown  the  memory  of  the  past,  but  mere  saturation  and 
waterloggedness  and  distention.  The  most  aldermanic, 
with  his  chin  upon  a  heart-leaf,  which  serves  for  a  nap 
kin  to  his  drooling  chaps,  under  this  northern  shore 
quaffs  a  deep  draught  of  the  once  scorned  water,  and 
passes  round  the  cup  with  the  ejaculation  tr-r-r-oonk, 
tr-r-r-oonk,  tr-r-r-oonk  !  and  straightway  comes  over  the 
water  from  some  distant  cove  the  same  password  re 
peated,  where  the  next  in  seniority  and  girth  has  gulped 
down  to  his  mark;  and  when  this  observance  has  made 
the  circuit  of  the  shores,  then  ejaculates  the  master  of 
ceremonies,  with  satisfaction,  tr-r-r-oonk  !  and  each  in 
his  turn  repeats  the  same  down  to  the  least  distended, 
leakiest,  and  flabbiest  paunched,  that  there  be  no  mis 
take;  and  then  the  bowl  goes  round  again  and  again, 
until  the  sun  disperses  the  morning  mist,  and  only  the 
patriarch  is  not  under  the  pond,  but  vainly  bellowing 
troonk  from  time  to  time,  and  pausing  for  a  reply. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  ever  heard  the  sound  of  cock- 
crowing  from  my  clearing,  and  I  thought  that  it  might  be 
worth  the  while  to  keep  a  cockerel  for  his  music  merely, 
as  a  singing  bird.  The  note  of  this  once  wild  Indian 


SOUNDS  141 

pheasant  is  certainly  the  most  remarkable  of  any  bird's, 
and  if  they  could  be  naturalized  without  being  domesti 
cated,  it  would  soon  become  the  most  famous  sound  in 
our  woods,  surpassing  the  clangor  of  the  goose  and  the 
hooting  of  the  owl;  and  then  imagine  the  cackling  of 
the  hens  to  fill  the  pauses  when  their  lords'  clarions 
rested !  No  wonder  that  man  added  this  bird  to  his  tame 
stock,  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  eggs  and  drumsticks. 
To  walk  in  a  winter  morning  in  a  wood  where  these  birds 
abounded,  their  native  woods,  and  hear  the  wild  cock 
erels  crow  on  the  trees,  clear  and  shrill  for  miles  over 
the  resounding  earth,  drowning  the  feebler  notes  of 
other  birds,  —  think  of  it!  It  would  put  nations  on  the 
alert.  Who  would  not  be  early  to  rise,  and  rise  earlier 
and  earlier  every  successive  day  of  his  life,  till  he  be 
came  unspeakably  healthy,  wealthy,  and  wise?  This 
foreign  bird's  note  is  celebrated  by  the  poets  of  all  coun 
tries  along  with  the  notes  of  their  native  songsters.  All 
climates  agree  with  brave  Chanticleer.  He  is  more  in 
digenous  even  than  the  natives.  His  health  is  ever  good, 
his  lungs  are  sound,  his  spirits  never  flag.  Even  the 
sailor  on  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  is  awakened  by  his 
voice;  but  its  shrill  sound  never  roused  me  from  my 
slumbers.  I  kept  neither  dog,  cat,  cow,  pig,  nor  hens,  so 
that  you  would  have  said  there  was  a  deficiency  of  do 
mestic  sounds;  neither  the  churn,  nor  the  spinning- 
wheel,  nor  even  the  singing  of  the  kettle,  nor  the  hissing 
of  the  urn,  nor  children  crying,  to  comfort  one.  An  old- 
fashioned  man  would  have  lost  his  senses  or  died  of 
ennui  before  this.  Not  even  rats  in  the  wall,  for  they 
were  starved  out,  or  rather  were  never  baited  in,  —  only 


142  WALDEN 

squirrels  on  the  roof  and  under  the  floor,  a  whip-poor- 
will  on  the  ridge-pole,  a  blue  jay  screaming  beneath  the 
window,  a  hare  or  woodchuck  under  the  house,  a  screech 
owl  or  a  cat  owl  behind  it,  a  flock  of  wild  geese  or  a 
laughing  loon  on  the  pond,  and  a  fox  to  bark  in  the 
night.  Not  even  a  lark  or  an  oriole,  those  mild  planta 
tion  birds,  ever  visited  my  clearing.  No  cockerels  to  crow 
nor  hens  to  cackle  in  the  yard.  No  yard!  but  unfenced 
nature  reaching  up  to  your  very  sills.  A  young  forest 
growing  up  under  your  windows,  and  wild  sumachs 
and  blackberry  vines  breaking  through  into  your  cellar; 
sturdy  pitch  pines  rubbing  and  creaking  against  the 
shingles  for  want  of  room,  their  roots  reaching  quite 
under  the  house.  Instead  of  a  scuttle  or  a  blind  blown 
off  in  the  gale,  —  a  pine  tree  snapped  off  or  torn  up  by 
the  roots  behind  your  house  for  fuel.  Instead  of  no  path 
to  the  front-yard  gate  in  the  Great  Snow,  —  no  gate  — • 
no  front-yard,  —  and  no  path  to  the  civilized  world. 


SOLITUDE 

J.HIS  is  a  delicious  evening,  when  the  whole  body  is 
one  sense,  and^mbibes  delight  through  every  pore.  I 
go  and  come  with  a  strange  liberty  in  Nature,  a  part  of 
herself.  As  I  walk  along  the  stony  shore  of  the  pond  in 
my  shirt-sleeves,  though  it  is  cool  as  well  as  cloudy  and 
windy,  and  I  see  nothing  special  to  attract  me,  all  the 
elements  are  unusually  congenial  to  me.  The  bullfrogs 
trump  to  usher  in  the  night,  and  the  note  of  the  whip- 
poor-will  is  borne  on  the  rippling  wind  from  over  the 
water.  Sympathy  with  the  fluttering  alder  and  poplar 
leaves  almost  takes  away  my  breath ;  yet,  like  the  lake, 
my  serenity  is  rippled  but  not  ruffled.  These  small  waves 
raised  by  the  evening  wind  are  as  remote  from  storm 
as  the  smooth  reflecting  surface.  Though  it  is  now  dark, 
the  wind  still  blows  and  roars  in  the  wood,  the  waves 
still  dash,  and  some  creatures  lull  the  rest  with  their 
notes.  The  repose  is  never  complete.  The  wildest  ani 
mals  do  not  repose,  but  seek  their  prey  now;  the  fox, 
and  skunk,  and  rabbit,  now  roam  the  fields  and  woods 
without  fear.  They  are  Nature's  watchmen,  —  links 
which  connect  the  days  of  animated  life. 

When  I  return  to  my  house  I  find  that  visitors  have 
been  there  and  left  their  cards,  either  a  bunch  of  flowers, 
or  a  wreath  of  evergreen,  or  a  name  in  pencil  on  a  yel- 


144  WALDEN 

low  walnut  leaf  or  a  chip.  They  who  come  rarely  to  the 
woods  take  some  little  piece  of  the  forest  into  their 
hands  to  play  with  by  the  way,  which  they  leave,  either 
intentionally  or  accidentally.  One  has  peeled  a  willow 
wand,  woven  it  into  a  ring,  and  dropped  it  on  my  table. 
I  could  always  tell  if  visitors  had  called  in  my  absence, 
either  by  the  bended  twigs  or  grass,  or  the  print  of  their 
shoes,  and  generally  of  what  sex  or  age  or  quality  they 
were  by  some  slight  trace  left,  as  a  flower  dropped,  or  a 
bunch  of  grass  plucked  and  thrown  away,  even  as  far  off 
as  the  railroad,  half  a  mile  distant,  or  by  the  lingering 
odor  of  a  cigar  or  pipe.  Nay,  I  was  frequently  notified 
of  the  passage  of  a  traveller  along  the  highway  sixty 
rods  off  by  the  scent  of  his  pipe. 

There  is  commonly  sufficient  space  about  us.  Our 
horizon  is  never  quite  at  our  elbows.  The  thick  wood  is 
not  just  at  our  door,  nor  the  pond,  but  somewhat  is  al 
ways  clearing,  familiar  and  worn  by  us,  appropriated 
and  fenced  in  some  way,  and  reclaimed  from  Nature. 
For  what  reason  have  I  this  vast  range  and  circuit,  some 
square  miles  of  unfrequented  forest,  for  my  privacy, 
abandoned  to  me  by  men  ?  My  nearest  neighbor  is  a 
mile  distant,  and  no  house  is  visible  from  any  place  but 
the  hill-tops  within  half  a  mile  of  my  own.  I  have  my 
horizon  bounded  by  woods  all  to  myself ;  a  distant  view 
of  the  railroad  where  it  touches  the  pond  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  the  fence  which  skirts  the  woodland  road 
on  the  other.  But  for  the  most  part  it  is  as  solitary  where 
I  live  as  on  the  prairies.  It  is  as  much  Asia  or  Africa  as 
New  England.  I  have,  as  it  were,  my  own  sun  and  moon 
and  stars,  and  a  little  world  all  to  myself.  At  night  there 


SOLITUDE  145 

was  never  a  traveller  passed  my  house,  or  knocked  at 
my  door,  more  than  if  I  were  the  first  or  last  man;  un 
less  it  were  in  the  spring,  when  at  long  intervals  some 
came  from  the  village  to  fish  for  pouts,  —  they  plainly 
fished  much  more  in  the  Walden  Pond  of  their  own 
natures,  and  baited  their  hooks  with  darkness,  —  but 
they  soon  retreated,  usually  with  light  baskets,  and  left 
"the  world  to  darkness  and  to  me,"  and  the  black -ker_- 
jiel  of  the  night  was  never  profaned  by  any  human 
neighborhood.  I  believe  that  men  are  generally  still  a 
little  afraid  of  the  dark,  though  the  witches  are  all  hung, 
and  Christianity  and  candles  have  been  introduced. 

Yet  I  experienced  sometimes  that  the  most  sweet  and 
tender,  the  most  innocent  and  encouraging  society  may 
be  found  in  any  natural  object,  even  for  the  poor  mis-    I 
anthrope  and  most  melancholy  man.    There  can  be  no 
very  black  melancholy  to  him  who  lives  in  the  midst  of 
nature  and  has  his  senses  still.    There  was  never  yet 
such  a  storm  but  it  was  JSolian  music  to  a  healthy  andi 
innocent  ear.  ^Nothing  can  rightly  compel  a  simple 
and  brave  man  to  a  vulgar  sadness.    While  I  enjoy  the  I 
friendship  of  the  seasons  I  trust  that  nothing  can  make   \ 
life  a  burden  to  me.    The  gentle  rain  which  waters  my 
beans  and  keeps  me  in  the  house  to-day  is  not  drear  and 
melancholy,  but  good  for  me  too.    Though  it  prevents 
my  Boeing  them,  it  is  of  far  more  worth  than  my  hoeing. 
If  it  should  continue  so  long  as  to  cause  the  seeds  to  rot 
in  the  ground  and  destroy  the  potatoes  in  th^  low  lands, 
it  would  still  be  good  for  the  grass  on  the  upfinds,  and, 
being  good  for  the  grass,  it  would  be  good  for  me.  Some 
times,  when  I  compare  myself  with  other  men,  it  seems 


146  WALDEN 

as  if  I  were  more  favored  by  the  gods  than  they,  beyond 
any  deserts  that  I  am  conscious  of;  as  if  I  had  a  war 
rant  and  surety  at  their  hands  which  my  fellows  have 
not,  and  were  especially  guided  and  guarded.  I  do  not 
flatter  myself,  but  if  it  be  possible  they  flatter  me.  1 
have  never  felt  lonesome,  or  in  the  least  oppressed  by  a 
sense  of  solitude,  but  once,  and  that  was  a  few  weeks 
after  I  came  to  the  woods,  when,  for  an  hour,  I  doubted 
if  the  near  neighborhood  of  man  was  not  essential  to  a 
serene  and  healthy  life.  To  be  alone  was  something  un 
pleasant.  But  I  was  at  the  same  time  conscious  of  a 
slight  insanity  in  my  mood,  and  seemed  to  foresee  my 
recovery.  In  the  Amidst  _of  a  gentle  rain  while  these 
thoughts  prevailed,  I  was  suddenly  sensible  of  such 
sweet  and  beneficent  society  in  Nature,  in  the  very  pat 
tering  of  the  drops,  and  in  every  sound  and  sight  around 
my  house,  an  infinite  and  unaccountable  friendliness  all 
at  once  like  an  atmosphere  sustaining  me,  as  made  the 
fancied  advantages  of  human  neighborhood  insignifi 
cant,  and  I  have  never  thought  of  them  since.  Every 
little  pine  needle  expanded  and  swelled  with  sympathy 
and  befriended  me.  I  was  so  distinctly  made  aware  of  the 
presence  of  something  kindred  to  me,  even  in  scenes 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  call  wild  and  dreary,  and 
also  that  the  nearest  of  blood  to  me  and  humanest  was 
not  a  person  nor  a  villager,  that  I  thought  no  place  could 
ever  be  strange  to  me  again.  — 

"Mourning  untimely  consumes  the  sad; 
|?ew  are  their  days  in  the  land  of  the  living, 
Beautiful  daughter  of  Tosear." 

Some  of  my  pleasantest  hours  were  during  the  long 


SOLITUDE  147 


rain-storms  in  the  spring  or  fall,  which  confined  me  to 
the  house  for  the  afternoon  as  well  as  the  forenoon, 
_jfoot]ied  by  their  ceaseless  roar  and  pelting;  when  an 
early  twilight  ushered  in  a  long  evening  in  which  many 
thoughts  had  time  to  take  root  and  juniold  themselves. 
In  those  driving  northeast  rains  which  tried  the  village 
houses  so,  when  the  maids  stood  ready  with  mop  and 
pail  in  front  entries  to  keep  the  ^deluge  out,  I  sat  behind 
my  door  in  my  little  house,  which  was  all  entry,  and 
thoroughly  enjoyed  its  protection.  In  one  heavy  thunder- 
shower  the  lightning  struck  a  large  pitch  pine  across  the 
pond,  making  a  very  conspicuous  and  perfectly  regular 
spiral  groove  from  top  to  bottom,  an  inch  or  more  deep, 
and  four  or  five  inches  wide,  as  you  would  groove  a 
walking-stick.  I  passed  it  again  the  other  day,  and  was 
struck  with  aw^on  looking  up  and  beholding  that  mark, 
now  more  distinct  than  ever,  where  a  terrific  and  resist 
less  bolt  came  down  out  of  the  harmless  sky  eight  years 
ago.  Men  frequently  say  to  me,  "  I  should  think  you 
would  feel  lonesome  down  there,  and  want  to  be  nearer 
to  folks,  rainy  and  snowy  days  and  nights  especially." 
I  am  tempted  to  reply  to  such,  —  This  whole  earth 
which  we  inhabit  is  but  a  point  in  space.  How  far  apart, 
think  you,  dwell  the  two  most  distant  inhabitants  of  yon 
der  star,  the  breadth  of  whose  disk  cannot  be  appre 
ciated  by  our  instruments  ?  Why  should  I  feel  lonely  ? 
is  not  our  planet  in  the  Milky  Way  ?  This  which  you 
put  seems  to  me  not  to  be  the  most  important  question. 
What  sort,  of  space  is  that  which  separates  a  man  from 
his  fellows  and  makes  him  solitary  ?  I  have  found  that 
no  exertion  of  the  legs  can  bring  two  minds  much  nearer 


148  WALDEN 

to  one  another.  What  do  we  want  most  to  dwell  near 
to  ?  Not  to  many  men  surely,  the  depot,  the  post-office, 
the  bar-room,  the  meeting-house,  the  school-house,  the 
grocery,  Beacon  Hill,  or  the  Five  Points,  where  men 
most  congregate,  but  to  the  perennial  source  of  our  life, 
whence  in  all  our  experience  we  have  found  that  to  issue, 
as  the  willow  stands  near  the  water  and  sends  out  its 
roots  in  that  direction.  This  will  vary  with  different 
natures,  but  this  is  the  place  where  a  wise  man  will  dig 
his  cellar.  ...  I  one  evening  overtook  one  of  my  towns 
men,  who  has  accumulated  what  is  called  "  a  handsome 
property,"  —  though  I  never  got  a  fair  view  of  it,  —  on 
the  Walden  road,  driving  a  pair  of  cattle  to  market,  who 
inquired  of  me  how  I  could  bring  my  mind  to  give  up 
so  many  of  the  comforts  of  life.  I  answered  that  I  was 
very  sure  I  liked  it  passably  well;  I  was  not  joking. 
And  so  I  went  home  to  my  bed,  and  left  him  to  pick  his 
way  through  the  darkness  and  the  mud  to  Brighton,  — 
or  Bright-town,  —  which  place  he  would  reach  some 
time  in  the  morning. 

Any  prospect  of  awakening  or  coming  to  life  to  a 
dead  man  makes  indifferent  all  times  and  places.  The 
place  where  that  may  occur  is  always  the  same,  and  in 
describably  pleasant  to  all  our  senses.  For  the  most 
part  we  allow  only  outlying  and  transient  circumstances 
to  make  our  occasions.  They  are,  in  fact,  the  cause 
of  our  distraction.  Nearest  to  all  things  is  that  power 
which  fashions  their  being.  Next  to  us  the  grandest 
laws  are  continually  being  executed.  Next  to  us  is  not 
the  workman  whom  we  have  hired,  with  whom  we  love 
so  well  to  talk,  but  the  workman  whose  work  we  are. 


SOLITUDE  149 

"  How  vast  and  profound  is  the  influence  of  thejmb- 
tile :  powers  of  Heaven  and  of  Earth!" 

"We  seek  to  perceive  them,  and  we  do  not  see  them; 
we  seek  to  hear  them,  and  we  do  not  hear  them;  identi 
fied  with  the  substance  of  things,  they  cannot  be  sepa 
rated  from  them." 

"  They  cause  that  in  all  the  universe  men  purify  and 
sanctify  their  hearts,  and  clothe  themselves  in  their 
holiday  garments  to  offer  sacrifices  and  oblations  to 
their  ancestors.  It  is  an  ocean  of  subtile  intelligences. 
They  are  everywhere,  above  us,  on  our  left,  on  our 
right;  they  environ  us  on  all  sides." 

We  are  the  subjects  of  an  experiment  which  is  not 
a  little  interesting  to  me.  Can  we  not  do  without  the 
society  of  our  gossips  a  little  while  under  these  circum 
stances,  —  have  our  own  thoughts  to  cheer  us  ?  Con 
fucius  says  truly,  "  Virtue  does  not  remain  as  an  aban 
doned  orphan;  it  must  of  necessity  have  neighbors." 

With  thinking  we  may  be  beside  ourselves  in  a  sane 
sense.  By  a  conscious  effort  of  the  mind  we  can  stand 
aloof  from  actions  and  their  consequences;  and  all 
things,  good  and  bad,  go  by  us  like  a  torrent.  We  are  not 
wholly  involved  in  Nature.  I  may  be  either  the  drift 
wood,  in  the  stream,  or  Indra  in  the  sky  looking  down 
on  it.  I  may  be  affected  by  a  theatrical  exhibition;  on 
the  other  hand,  I  may  not  be  affected  by  an  actual  event 
which  appears  to  concern  me  much  more.  I  only  know 
myself  as  a  human  entity;  the  scene,  so  to  speak,  of 
thoughts  and  affections;  and  am  sensible  of  a  certain 
doubleness  by  which  I  can  stand  as  remote  from  myself 
as  from  another.  However  intense  my  experience,  I  am 


150  WALDEN 

conscious  of  the  presence  and  criticism  of  a  part  of  me, 
which,  as  it  were,  is  not  a  part  of  me,  but  spectator,  shar 
ing  no  experience,  but  taking  note  of  it,  and  that  is 
no  more  I  than  it  is  you.  When  the  play,  it  may  be 
the  tragedy,  of  life  is  over,  the  spectator  goes  his  way.  It 
was  a  kind  of  fiction,  a  work  of  the  imagination  only,  so 
far  as  he  was  concerned.  This  doubleness  may  easily 
make  us  poor  neighbors  and  friends  sometimes. 

I  find  it  wholesome  to  be  alone  the  greater  part  of  the 
time.  To  be  in  company,  even  with  the  best,  is  soon 
wearisome  and  dissipating.  I  love  to  be  alone.  I  never 
found  the  companion  that  was  so  conapanio^able  as 
solitude.  We  are  for  the  most  part  more  lonely  when 
we  go  abroad  among  men  than  when  we  stay  in  our 
chambers.  A  man  thinking  or  working  is  always  alone, 
let  him  be  where  he  will.  Solitude  is  not  measured  by 
the  miles  of  space  that  intervene  between  a  man  and  his 
fellows.  The  really  diligent  student  in  one  of  the  crowded 
hives  of  Cambridge  College  is  as  solitary  as  a  deryis  in 
the  desert.  The  farmer  can  work  alone  in  the  field  or 
the  woods  all  day,  hoeing  or  chopping,  and  not  feel 
lonesome,  because  he  is  employed;  but  when  he  comes 
home  at  night  he  cannot  sit  down  in  a  room  alone,  at 
the  mercy  of  his  thoughts,  but  must  be  where  he  can 
"  see  the  folks,"  and  recreate,  and,  as  he  thinks,  remune 
rate  himself  for  his  day's  solitude;  and  henqg  he  won 
ders  how  the  student  can  sit  alone  in  the  house  all  night 
and  most  of  the  day  without  ennui  and  "the  blues;" 
but  he  does  not  realize  that  the  student,  though  in  the 
house,  is  still  at  work  in  his  field,  and  chopping  in  his 
woods,  as  the  farmer  in  his,  and  in  turn  seeks  the  same 


SOLITUDE  151 

recreation  and  society  that  the  latter  does,  though  it 
may  be  a  more_condensed  form  of  it. 

Society  is  commonly  too  cheap.  We  meet  at  very 
short  intervals,  not  having  had  time  to  acquire  any  new 
value  for  each  other.  We  meet  at  meals  three  times  a 
day,  and  give  each  other  a  new  taste  of  that  old  musty 
cheese  that  we  are.  We  have  had  to  agree  on  a  certain  set 
of  rules,  called  etiquette  and  politeness,  to  make  this 
frequent  meeting  tolerable  and  that  we  need  not  come 
to  open  war.  We  meet  at  the  post-office,  and  at  the 
sociable,  and  about  the  fireside  every  night;  we  live 
thick  and  are  in  each  other's  way,  and  shimble  over  one 
another,  and  I  think  that  we  thus  lose  some  respect  for 
one  another.  Certainly  less  frequency  would  §uffice  for 
all  important  and  hearty  communications.  Consider 
the  girls  in  a  factory,  —  never  alone,  hardly  in  their 
dreams.  It  would  be  better  if  there  were  but  one  in 
habitant  to  a  square  mile,  as  where  I  live.  The  value  of 
a  man  is  not  in  his  skin,  that  we  should  touch  him. 

I  have  heard  of  a  man  lost  in  the  woods  and  dying  of 
famine  and  exhaustion  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  whose  lone 
liness  was  relieved  by  the  grotesque  visions  with  which, 
owing  to  bodily  weakness,  his  diseased  imagination 
surrounded  him,  and  which  he  believed  to  be  real.  So 
also,  owing  to  bodily  and  mental  health  and  strength, 
we  may  be  continually  cheered  by  a  like  but  more  nor 
mal  and  natural  society,  and  come  to  know  that  we  are 
never  alone. 

I  have  a  great  deal  of  company  in  my  house ;  espe 
cially  in  the  morning,  when  nobody  calls.  Let  me  suggest 
a  few  comparisons,  that  some  one  may  convey  an  idea 


152  WALDEN 

of  my  situation.  I  am  no  more  lonely  than  the  loon  in 
the  pond  that  laughs  so  loud,  or  than  Walden  Pond 
itself.  What  company  has  that  lonely  lake,  I  pray? 
And  yet  it  has  not  the  blue  devils,  but  the  blue  angels 
in  it,  in  the  jajzjue  tint  of  its  waters.  The  sun  is  alone, 
except  in  thick  weather,  when  there  sometimes  appear 
to  be  two,  but  one  is  a  mock  sun.  God  is  alone,  —  but 
the  devil,  he  is  far  fromnbeing  alone;  he  sees  a  great 
deal  of  company;  he  is  legion.  I  am  no  more  lonely 
than  a  single  mullein  or  dandelion  in  a  pasture,  or  a  bean 
leaf,  or  sorrel,  or  a  horse-fly,  or  a  bumblebee.  I  am  no 
more  lonely  than  the  Mill  Brook,  or  a  weathercock, 
or  the  north  star,  or  the  south  wind,  or  an  April  shower, 
or  a  January  thaw,  or  the  first  spider  in  a  new  house. 

I  have  occasional  visits  in  the  long  winter  evenings, 
when  the  snow  falls  fast  and  the  wind  howls  in  the 
wood,  from  an  old  settler  and  original  proprietor,  who 
is  reported  to  have  dug  Walden  Pond,  and  stoned  it, 
and  fringed  it  with  pine  woods ;  who  tells  me  stories  of 
old  time  and  of  new  eternity ;  and  between  us  we  man 
age  to  pass  a  cheerful  evening  with  social  mirth  and 
pleasant  views  of  things,  even  without  apples  or  cider,  — 
a  most  wise  and  humorous  friend,  whom  I  love  much, 
who  keeps  himself  more  secret  than  ever  did  Goffe  or 
Whalley;  and  though  he  is  thought  to  be  dead,  none 
can  show  where  he  is  buried.  An  elderly  dame,  too, 
dwells  in  my  neighborhood,  invisible  to  most  persons, 
in  whose  odorous  herb  garden  I  love  to  stroll  some 
times,  gathering  simples  and  listening  to  her  fables; 
for  she  has  a  genius  of  unequalled  fertility,  and  her 
memory  runs  back  farther  than  mythology,  and  she  can 


SOLITUDE  153 

tell  me  the  original  of  every  fable,  and  on  what  fact 
every  one  is  founded,  for  the  incidents  occurred  when 
she  was  young.  Ajruddy  and  lusty  old  dame,  who  de 
lights  in  all  weathers  and  seasons,  and  is  likely  to  out 
live  all  her  children  yet. 

The  indescribable  innocence  and  beneficence  of  Na 
ture,  —  of  sun  and  wind  and  rain,  of  summer  and  win 
ter, —  such  health,  such  cheer,  they  afford  forever!  and 
such  sympathy  have  they  ever  with  our  race,  that  all 
Nature  would  be  affected,  and  the  sun's  brightness  fade, 
and  the  winds  would  sigh  humanely,  and  the  clouds  rain 
tears,  and  the  woods  shed  their  leaves  and  put  on  mourn 
ing  in  midsummer,  if  any  man  should  ever  for  a  just 
cause  grieve.  Shall  I  not  have  intelligence  with  the 
earth?  Am  I  not  partly  leaves  and  vegetable  mould 
myself  ? 

What  is  the  pill  which  will  keep  us  well,  serene,  con 
tented?  Not  my  or  thy  great-grandfather's,  but  our 
great-grandmother  Nature's  universal,  vegetable,  bo 
tanic  medicines,  by  which  she  has  kept  herself  young 
always,  outlived  so  many  old  Parrs  in  her  day,  and  fed  her 
health  with  their  decaying  fatness.  For  my  panacea, 
instead  of  one  of  those  quack  vials  of  a  mixture  dipped 
from  Acheron  and  the  Dead  Sea,  which  come  out  of 
those  long  shallow  black-schooner  looking  wagons  whicl 
we  sometimes  see  made  to  carry  bottles,  let  me  have  ^ 
draught  of  undiluted  morning  air.  / Morning  air!  If  men 
will  not  drink  of  this  at  the  fountain-head  of  the  day, 
why,  then,  we  must  even  bottle  up  some  and  sell  it  in  the 
shops,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  have  lost  their  sub 
scription  ticket  to  morning  time  in  this  world.  But  re- 


154  WALDEN 

member,  it  will  not  keep  quite  till  noonday  even  in  the 
coolest  cellar,  but  drive  out  the  stopples  long  ere  that 
and  follow  westward  the  steps  of  Aurora.  I  am  no  wor 
shipper  of  Hygeia,  who  was  the  daughter  of  that  old 
herb-doctor  ^Esculapius,  and  who  is  represented  on 
monuments  holding  a  serpent  in  one  hand,  and  in  the 
other  a  cup  out  of  which  the  serpent  sometimes  drinks ; 
but  rather  of  Hebe,  cup-bearer  to  Jupiter,  who  was  the 
daughter  of  Juno  and  wild  lettuce,  and  who  had  the 
power  of  restoring  gods  and  men  to  the  vigor  of  youth. 
She  was  probably  the  only  thoroughly  sound-condi 
tioned,  healthy,  and  robust  young  lady  that  ever  walked 
the  globe,  and  wherever  she  came  it  was  spring. 


VI 

VISITORS 

J_  THINK  that  I  love  society  as  much  as  most,  and  am 
ready  enough  to  fasten  myself  like  a  bloodsucker  for 
the  time  to  any  full-blooded  man  that  comes  in  my  way. 
I  am  naturally  no  hermit,  but  might  possibly  sit  out  the 
sturdiest  frequenter  of  the  bar-room,  if  my  business 
called  me  thither. 

I  had  three  chairs  in  my  house;  one  for  solitude,  two 
for  friendship,  three  for  society.  When  visitors  came  in 
larger  and  unexpected  numbers  there  was  but  the  third 
chair  for  them  all,  but  they  generally  economized  the 
room  by  standing  up.  It  is  surprising  how  many  great 
men  and  women  a  small  house  will  contain.  I  have  had 
twenty-five  or  thirty  souls,  with  their  bodies,  at  once  un 
der  my  roof,  and  yet  we  often  parted  without  being  aware 
that  we  had  come  very  near  to  one  another.  Many  of 
our  houses,  both  public  and  private,  with  their  almost 
innumerable  apartments,  their  huge  halls  and  their 
cellars  for  the  storage  of  wines  and  other  munitions  of 
peace,  appear  to  me  extravagantly  large  for  their  in 
habitants.  They  are  so  vast  and  magnificent  that  the 
latter  seem  to  be  only  vermin  which  infest  them.  I  am 
surprised  when  the  herald  blows  his  summons  before 
some  Tremont  or  Astor  or  Middlesex  House,  to  see 
come  creeping  out  over  the  piazza  for  all  inhabitants  a 


156  WALDEN 

ridiculous  mouse,  which  soon  again  slinks  into  some 
hole  in  the  pavement. 

One  inconvenience  I  sometimes  experienced  in  so 
3mall  a  house,  the  difficulty  of  getting  to  a  sufficient  dis- 
iance  from  my  guest  when  we  began  to  utter  the  big 
thoughts  in  big  words.  You  want  room  for  your  thoughts 
to  get  into  sailing  trim  and  run  a  course  or  two  before 
they  make  their  port.  The  bullet  of  your  thought  must 
have  overcome  its  lateral  and  ricochet  motion  and  fallen 
into  its  last  and  steady  course  before  it  reaches  the  ear  of 
the  hearer,  else  it  may  plow  out  again  through  the  side 
of  his  head.  Also,  our  sentences  wanted  room  to  unfold 
and  form  their  columns  in  the  interval.  Individuals,  like 
nations,  must  have  suitable  broad  and  natural  bounda 
ries,  even  a  considerable  neutral  ground,  between  them. 
I  have  found  it  a  singular  luxury  to  talk  across  the  pond 
to  a  companion  on  the  opposite  side.  In  my  house  we 
were  so  near  that  we  could  not  begin  to  hear,  —  we 
could  not  speak  low  enough  to  be  heard;  as  when  you 
throw  two  stones  into  calm  water  so  near  that  they  break 
each  other's  undulations.  If  we  are  merely  loquacious 
and  loud  talkers,  then  we  can  afford  to  stand  very  near 
together,  cheek  by  jowl,  and  feel  each  other's  breath; 
but  if  we  speak  reservedly  and  thoughtfully,  we  want  to 
be  farther  apart,  that  all  animal  heat  and  moisture  may 
have  a  chance  to  evaporate.  If  we  would  enjoy  the  most 
intimate  society  with  that  in  each  of  us  which  is  without, 
or  above,  being  spoken  to,  we  must  not  only  be  silent, 
but  commonly  so  far  apart  bodily  that  we  cannot  pos 
sibly  hear  each  other's  voice  in  any  case.  Referred  to  this 
standard,  speech  is  for  the  convenience  of  those  who  are 


VISITORS  157 

hard  of  hearing;  but  there  are  many  fine  things  which 
we  cannot  say  if  we  have  to  shout.  As  the  conversation 
began  to  assume  a  loftier  and  grander  tone,  we  gradually 
shoved  our  chairs  farther  apart  till  they  touched  the  wall 
in  opposite  corners,  and  then  commonly  there  was  not 
room  enough. 

My  "best"  room,  however,  my  withdrawing  room, 
always  ready  for  company,  on  whose  carpet  the  sun 
rarely  fell,  was  the  pine  wood  behind  my  house.  Thither 
in  summer  days,  when  distinguished  guests  came,  I 
took  them,  and  a  priceless  domestic  swept  the  floor  and 
dusted  the  furniture  and  kept  the  things  in  order. 

If  one  guest  came  he  sometimes  partook  of  my  frugal 
meal,  and  it  was  no  interruption  to  conversation  to  be 
stirring  a  hasty-pudding,  or  watching  the  rising  and  ma 
turing  of  a  loaf  of  bread  in  the  ashes,  in  the  meanwhile. 
But  if  twenty  came  and  sat  in  my  house  there  was  no 
thing  said  about  dinner,  though  there  might  be  bread 
enough  for  two,  more  than  if  eating  were  a  forsaken 
habit;  but  we  naturally  practised  abstinence;  and  this 
was  never  felt  to  be  an  offence  against  hospitality,  but 
the  most  proper  and  considerate  course.  The  waste  and 
decay  of  physical  life,  which  so  often  needs  repair, 
seemed  miraculously  retarded  in  such  a  case,  and  the 
vital  vigor  stood  its  ground.  I  could  entertain  thus  a 
thousand  as  well  as  twenty ;  and  if  any  ever  went  away 
disappointed  or  hungry  from  my  house  when  they  found 
me  at  home,  they  may  depend  upon  it  that  I  sympathized 
with  them  at  least.  So  easy  is  it,  though  many  house 
keepers  doubt  it,  to  establish  new  and  better  customs 
in  the  place  of  the  old.  You  need  not  rest  your  reputa- 


158  WALDEN 

tion  on  the  dinners  you  give.  For  my  own  part,  I  was 
never  so  effectually  deterred  from  frequenting  a  man's 
house,  by  any  kind  of  Cerberus  whatever,  as  by  the  pa 
rade  one  made  about  dining  me,  which  I  toek  to  be  a 
very  polite  and  roundabout  hint  never  to  trouble  him  so 
again.  I  think  I  shall  never  revisit  those  scenes.  I  should 
be  proud  to  have  for  the  motto  of  my  cabin  those  lines 
of  Spenser  which  one  of  my  visitors  inscribed  on  a  yel 
low  walnut  leaf  for  a  card :  — 

"Arrived  there,  the  little  house  they  fill, 

Ne  looke  for  entertainment  where  none  was; 
Rest  is  their  feast,  and  all  things  at  their  will: 
The  noblest  mind  the  best  contentment  has." 

When  Winslow,  afterward  governor  of  the  Plymouth 
Colony,  went  with  a  companion  on  a  visit  of  ceremony 
to  Massasoit  on  foot  through  the  woods,  and  arrived 
tired  and  hungry  at  his  lodge,  they  were  well  received 
by  the  king,  but  nothing  was  said  about  eating  that  day. 
When  the  night  arrived,  to  quote  their  own  words, — 
"  He  laid  us  on  the  bed  with  himself  and  his  wife,  they 
at  the  one  end  and  we  at  the  other,  it  being  only  planks 
laid  a  foot  from  the  ground  and  a  thin  mat  upon  them. 
Two  more  of  his  chief  men,  for  want  of  room,  pressed 
by  and  upon  us;  so  that  we  were  worse  weary  of  our 
lodging  than  of  our  journey."  At  one  o'clock  the  next 
day  Massasoit  "brought  two  fishes  that  he  had  shot," 
about  thrice  as  big  as  a  bream.  "These  being  boiled, 
there  were  at  least  forty  looked  for  a  share  in  them ;  the 
most  eat  of  them.  This  meal  only  we  had  in  two  nights 
and  a  day;  and  had  not  one  of  us  bought  a  partridge, 
we  had  taken  our  journey  fasting."  Fearing  that  they 


VISITORS  159 

would  be  light-headed  for  want  of  food  and  also  sleep, 
owing  to  "the  savages'  barbarous  singing,  (for  they 
use  to  sing  themselves  asleep,) "  and  that  they  might 
get  home  while  they  had  strength  to  travel,  they  departed. 
As  for  lodging,  it  is  true  they  were  but  poorly  entertained, 
though  what  they  found  an  inconvenience  was  no  doubt 
intended  for  an  honor;  but  as  far  as  eating  was  con 
cerned,  I  do  not  see  how  the  Indians  could  have  done 
better.  They  had  nothing  to  eat  themselves,  and  they 
were  wiser  than  to  think  that  apologies  could  supply  the 
place  of  food  to  their  guests;  so  they  drew  their  belts 
tighter  and  said  nothing  about  it.  Another  time  when 
Winslow  visited  them,  it  being  a  season  of  plenty  with 
them,  there  was  no  deficiency  in  this  respect. 

As  for  men,  they  will  hardly  fail  one  anywhere.  I  had 
more  visitors  while  I  lived  in  the  woods  than  at  any  other 
period  of  my  life ;  I  mean  that  I  had  some.  I  met  several 
there  under  more  favorable  circumstances  than  I  could 
anywhere  else.  But  fewer  came  to  see  me  on  trivial  busi 
ness.  In  this  respect,  my  company  was  winnowed  by  my 
mere  distance  from  town.  I  had  withdrawn  so  far  within 
the  great  ocean  of  solitude,  into  which  the  rivers  of  so 
ciety  empty,  that  for  the  most  part,  so  far  as  my  needs 
were  concerned,  only  the  finest  sediment  was  deposited 
around  me.  Beside,  there  were  wafted  to  me  evidences 
of  unexplored  and  uncultivated  continents  on  the  other 
side. 

Who  should  come  to  my  lodge  this  morning  but  a  true 
Homeric  or  Paphlagonian  man,  —  he  had  so  suitable 
and  poetic  a  name  that  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  print  it  here, 
—  a  Canadian,  a  woodchopper  and  post-maker,  who 


160  WALDEN 

can  hole  fifty  posts  in  a  day,  who  made  his  last  supper 
on  a  woodchuck  which  his  dog  caught.  He,  too,  has 
heard  of  Homer,  and,  "  if  it  were  not  for  books,"  would 
"  not  know  what  to  do  rainy  days,"  though  perhaps  he 
has  not  read  one  wholly  through  for  many  rainy  seasons. 
Some  priest  who  could  pronounce  the  Greek  itself  taught 
him  to  read  his  verse  in  the  Testament  in  his  native  par 
ish  far  away;  and  now  I  must  translate  to  him,  while 
he  holds  the  book,  Achilles'  reproof  to  Patroclus  for  his 
sad  countenance.  —  "  Why  are  you  in  tears,  Patroclus, 
like  a  young  girl  ?  "  — 

"Or  have  you  alone  heard  some  news  from  Phthia? 
They  say  that  Mencetius  lives  yet,  son  of  Actor, 
And  Peleus  lives,  son  of  vEacus,  among  the  Myrmidons, 
Either  of  whom  having  died,  we  should  greatly  grieve." 

He  says,  "  That 's  good,"  He  has  a  great  bundle  of  white 
oak  bark  under  his  arm  for  a  sick  man,  gathered  this 
Sunday  morning.  "  I  suppose  there 's  no  harm  in  going 
after  such  a  thing  to-day,"  says  he.  To  him  Homer  was 
a  great  writer,  though  what  his  writing  was  about  he  did 
not  know.  A  more  simple  and  natural  man  it  would  be 
hard  to  find.  Vice  and  disease,  which  cast  such  a  som 
bre  moral  hue  over  the  world,  seemed  to  have  hardly 
any  existence  for  him.  He  was  about  twenty-eight  years 
old,  and  had  left  Canada  and  his  father's  house  a  dozen 
years  before  to  work  in  the  States,  and  earn  money  to 
buy  a  farm  with  at  last,  perhaps  in  his  native  country. 
He  was  cast  in  the  coarsest  mould ;  a  stout  but  sluggish 
body,  yet  gracefully  carried,  with  a  thick  sunburnt  neck, 
dark  bushy  hair,  and  dull  sleepy  blue  eyes,  which  were 
occasionally  lit  up  with  expression.  He  wore  a  flat  gray 


VISITORS  161 

cloth  cap,  a  dingy  wool-colored  greatcoat,  and  cow 
hide  boots.  He  was  a  great  consumer  of  meat,  usually 
carrying  his  dinner  to  his  work  a  couple  of  miles  past 
my  house,  —  for  he  chopped  all  summer,  —  in  a  tin 
pail;  cold  meats,  often  cold  woodchucks,  and  coffee  in 
a  stone  bottle  which  dangled  by  a  string  from  his  belt; 
and  sometimes  he  offered  me  a  drink.  He  came  along 
early,  crossing  my  bean-field,  though  without  anxiety 
or  haste  to  get  to  his  work,  such  as  Yankees  exhibit.  He 
was  n't  a-going  to  hurt  himself.  He  did  n't  care  if  he 
only  earned  his  board.  Frequently  he  would  leave  his 
dinner  in  the  bushes,  when  his  dog  had  caught  a  wood- 
chuck  by  the  way,  and  go  back  a  mile  and  a  half  to  dress 
it  and  leave  it  in  the  cellar  of  the  house  where  he  boarded, 
after  deliberating  first  for  half  an  hour  whether  he  could 
not  sink  it  in  the  pond  safely  till  nightfall,  —  loving  to 
dwell  long  upon  these  themes.  He  would  say,  as  he  went 
by  in  the  morning,  "  How  thick  the  pigeons  are !  If  work 
ing  every  day  were  not  my  trade,  I  could  get  all  the  meat 
I  should  want  by  hunting,  —  pigeons,  woodchucks,  rab 
bits,  partridges,  —  by  gosh!  I  could  get  all  I  should 
want  for  a  week  in  one  day." 

He  was  a  skilful  chopper,  and  indulged  in  some  flour 
ishes  and  ornaments  in  his  art.  He  cut  his  trees  level 
and  close  to  the  ground,  that  the  sprouts  which  came  up 
afterward  might  be  more  vigorous  and  a  sled  might 
slide  over  the  stumps;  and  instead  of  leaving  a  whole 
tree  to  support  his  corded  wood,  he  would  pare  it  away 
to  a  slender  stake  or  splinter  which  you  could  break  off 
with  your  hand  at  last. 

He  interested  me  because  he  was  so  quiet  and  solitary 


162  WALDEN 

and  so  happy  withal;  a  well  of  good  humor  and  con 
tentment  which  overflowed  at  his  eyes.  His  mirth  was 
without  alloy.  Sometimes  I  saw  him  at  his  work  in  the 
woods,  felling  trees,  and  he  would  greet  me  with  a  laugh 
of  inexpressible  satisfaction,  and  a  salutation  in  Cana 
dian  French,  though  he  spoke  English  as  well.  When  I 
approached  him  he  would  suspend  his  work,  and  with 
half -suppressed  mirth  lie  along  the  trunk  of  a  pine  which 
he  had  felled,  and,  peeling  off  the  inner  bark,  roll  it  up 
into  a  ball  and  chew  it  while  he  laughed  and  talked. 
Such  an  exuberance  of  animal  spirits  had  he  that  he 
sometimes  tumbled  down  and  rolled  on  the  ground  with 
laughter  at  anything  which  made  him  think  and  tickled 
him.  Looking  round  upon  the  trees  he  would  exclaim, 
—  "  By  George !  I  can  enjoy  myself  well  enough  here 
chopping;  I  want  no  better  sport."  Sometimes,  when 
at  leisure,  he  amused  himself  all  day  in  the  woods  with 
a  pocket  pistol,  firing  salutes  to  himself  at  regular  inter 
vals  as  he  walked.  In  the  winter  he  had  a  fire  by  which 
at  noon  he  warmed  his  coffee  in  a  kettle ;  and  as  he  sat 
on  a  log  to  eat  his  dinner  the  chickadees  would  some 
times  come  round  and  alight  on  his  arm  and  peck  at 
the  potato  in  his  fingers ;  and  he  said  that  he  "  liked  to 
have  the  little  fellers  about  him." 

In  him  the  animal  man  chiefly  was  developed.  In 
physical  endurance  and  contentment  he  was  cousin  to 
the  pine  and  the  rock.  I  asked  him  once  if  he  was  not 
sometimes  tired  at  night,  after  working  all  day;  and  he 
answered,  with  a  sincere  and  serious  look,  "  Gorrappit,  I 
never  was  tired  in  my  life."  But  the  intellectual  and  what 
is  called  spiritual  man  in  him  were  slumbering  as  in  an 


VISITORS  163 

infant.  He  had  been  instructed  only  in  that  innocent  and 
ineffectual  way  in  which  the  Catholic  priests  teach  the 
aborigines,  by  which  the  pupil  is  never  educated  to  the 
legree  of  consciousness,  but  only  to  the  degree  of  trust 
and  reverence,  and  a  child  is  not  made  a  man,  but  kept  a 
child.  When  Nature  made  him,  she  gave  him  a  strong 
body  and  contentment  for  his  portion,  and  propped  him 
on  every  side  with  reverence  and  reliance,  that  he  might 
live  out  his  threescore  years  and  ten  a  child.  He  was  so 
genuine  and  unsophisticated  that  no  introduction  would 
serve  to  introduce  him,  more  than  if  you  introduced  a 
woodchuck  to  your  neighbor.  He  had  got  to  find  him 
out  as  you  did.  He  would  not  play  any  part.  Men  paid 
him  wages  for  work,  and  so  helped  to  feed  and  clothe 
him;  but  he  never  exchanged  opinions  with  them.  He 
was  so  simply  and  naturally  humble  —  if  he  can  be 
called  humble  who  never  aspires  —  that  humility  was 
no  distinct  quality  in  him,  nor  could  foe  Conceive  of  it. 
Wiser  men  were  demigods  to  him.  If  you  told  him  that 
such  a  one  was  coming,  he  did  as  if  he  thought  that  any 
thing  so  grand  would  expect  nothing  of  himself,  but  take 
all  the  responsibility  on  itself,  and  let  him  be  forgotten 
still.  He  never  heard  the  sound  of  praise.  He  particu 
larly  reverenced  the  writer  and  the  preacher.  Their  per 
formances  were  miracles.  When  I  told  him  that  I  wrote 
considerably,  he  thought  for  a  long  time  that  it  was 
merely  the  handwriting  which  I  meant,  for  he  could 
write  a  remarkably  good  hand  himself.  I  sometimes 
found  the  name  of  his  native  parish  handsomely  written 
in  the  snow  by  the  highway,  with  the  proper  French  ac 
cent,  and  knew  that  he  had  passed.  I  asked  him  if  he 


164  WALDEN 

ever  wished  to  write  his  thoughts.  He  said  that  he  had 
read  and  written  letters  for  those  who  could  not,  but  he 
never  tried  to  write  thoughts,  —  no,  he  could  not,  he 
could  not  tell  what  to  put  first,  it  would  kill  him,  and 
then  there  was  spelling  to  be  attended  to  at  the  same 
time! 

I  heard  that  a  distinguished  wise  man  and  reformer 
asked  him  if  he  did  not  want  the  world  to  be  changed; 
but  he  answered  with  a  chuckle  of  surprise  in  his  Cana 
dian  accent,  not  knowing  that  the  question  had  ever 
been  entertained  before,  "No,  I  like  it  well  enough." 
It  would  have  suggested  many  things  to  a  philosopher 
to  have  dealings  with  him.  To  a  stranger  he  appeared 
to  know  nothing  of  things  in  general;  yet  I  sometimes 
saw  in  him  a  man  whom  I  had  not  seen  before,  and  I 
did  not  know  whether  he  was  as  wise  as  Shakespeare  or 
as  simply  ignorant  as  a  child,  whether  to  suspect  him 
of  a  fine  poetic  consciousness  or  of  stupidity.  A  towns 
man  told  me  that  when  he  met  him  sauntering  through 
the  village  in  his  small  close-fitting  cap,  and  whistling  to 
himself,  he  reminded  him  of  a  prince  in  disguise. 

His  only  books  were  an  almanac  and  an  arithmetic, 
in  which  last  he  was  considerably  expert.  The  former 
was  a  sort  of  cyclopaedia  to  him,  which  he  supposed  to 
contain  an  abstract  of  human  knowledge,  as  indeed  it 
does  to  a  considerable  extent.  I  loved  to  sound  him  on 
the  various  reforms  of  the  day,  and  he  never  failed  to 
look  at  them  in  the  most  simple  and  practical  light.  He 
had  never  heard  of  such  things  before.  Could  he  do 
without  factories?  I  asked.  He  had  worn  the  home 
made  Vermont  gray,  he  said,  and  that  was  good.  Could 


VISITORS  165 

he  dispense  with  tea  and  coffee  ?  Did  this  country  afford 
any  beverage  beside  water?  He  had  soaked  hemlock 
leaves  in  water  and  drank  it,  and  thought  that  was  bet 
ter  than  water  in  warm  weather.  When  I  asked  him  if 
he  could  do  without  money,  he  showed  the  convenience 
of  money  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  and  coincide  with 
the  most  philosophical  accounts  of  the  origin  of  this 
institution,  and  the  very  derivation  of  the  word  pecunia. 
If  an  ox  were  his  property,  and  he  wished  to  get  needles 
and  thread  at  the  store,  he  thought  it  would  be  incon 
venient  and  impossible  soon  to  go  on  mortgaging  some 
portion  of  the  creature  each  time  to  that  amount.  He 
could  defend  many  institutions  better  than  any  philoso 
pher,  because,  in  describing  them  as  they  concerned 
him,  he  gave  the  true  reason  for  their  prevalence,  and 
speculation  had  not  suggested  to  him  any  other.  At 
another  time,  hearing  Plato's  definition  of  a  man,  —  a 
biped  without  feathers,  —  and  that  one  exhibited  a  cock 
plucked  and  called  it  Plato's  man,  he  thought  it  an  im 
portant  difference  that  the  knees  bent  the  wrong  way. 
He  would  sometimes  exclaim,  "  How  I  love  to  talk!  By 
George,  I  could  talk  all  day ! "  I  asked  him  once,  when  I 
had  not  seen  him  for  many  months,  if  he  had  got  a  new 
idea  this  summer.  "  Good  Lord,"  said  he,  "  a  man  that 
has  to  work  as  I  do,  if  he  does  not  forget  the  ideas  he  has 
had,  he  will  do  well.  May  be  the  man  you  hoe  with  is 
inclined  to  race;  then,  by  gorry,  your  mind  must  be 
there;  you  think  of  weeds."  He  would  sometimes  ask  me 
first  on  such  occasions,  if  I  had  made  any  improvement. 
One  winter  day  I  asked  him  if  he  was  always  satisfied 
with  himself,  wishing  to  suggest  a  substitute  within  him 


166  WALDEN 

fyr  the  priest  without,  and  some  higher  motive  for  liv 
ing.  "  Satisfied ! "  said  he;  "  some  men  are  satisfied  with 
one  thing,  and  some  with  another.  One  man,  perhaps, 
if  he  has  got  enough,  will  be  satisfied  to  sit  all  day 
with  his  back  to  the  fire  and  his  belly  to  the  table,  by 
George ! "  Yet  I  never,  by  any  manoeuvring,  could  get 
him  to  take  the  spiritual  view  of  things ;  the  highest  that 
he  appeared  to  conceive  of  was  a  simple  expediency, 
such  as  you  might  expect  an  animal  to  appreciate ;  and 
this,  practically,  is  true  of  most  men.  If  I  suggested 
any  improvement  in  his  mode  of  life,  he  merely  an 
swered,  without  expressing  any  regret,  that  it  was  too 
late.  Yet  he  thoroughly  believed  in  honesty  and  the 
like  virtues. 

There  was  a  certain  positive  originality,  however 
slight,  to  be  detected  in  him,  and  I  occasionally  ob 
served  that  he  was  thinking  for  himself  and  expressing 
his  own  opinion,  a  phenomenon  so  rare  that  I  would  any 
day  walk  ten  miles  to  observe  it,  and  it  amounted  to  the 
re-origination  of  many  of  the  institutions  of  society. 
Though  he  hesitated,  and  perhaps  failed  to  express  him 
self  distinctly,  he  always  had  a  presentable  thought  be 
hind.  Yet  his  thinking  was  so  primitive  and  immersed 
in  his  animal  life,  that,  though  more  promising  than  a 
merely  learned  man's,  it  rarely  ripened  to  anything 
which  can  be  reported.  He  suggested  that  there  might 
be  men  of  genius  in  the  lowest  grades  of  life,  however 
permanently  humble  and  illiterate,  who  take  their  own 
view  always,  or  do  not  pretend  to  see  at  all;  who  are 
as  bottom  Jess  even  as  Walden  Pond  was  thought  to  be, 
though  they  may  be  dark  and  muddy. 


VISITORS  167 

Many  a  traveller  came  out  of  his  way  to  see  me  and 
the  inside  of  my  house,  and,  as  an  excuse  for  calling, 
asked  for  a  glass  of  water.  I  told  them  that  I  drank  at 
the  pond,  and  pointed  thither,  offering  to  lend  them 
a  dipper.  Far  off  as  1  lived,  I  was  not  exempted  from 
that  annual  visitation  which  occurs,  methinks,  about 
the  first  of  April,  when  everybody  is  on  the  move;  and 
I  had  my  share  of  good  luck,  though  there  were  some 
curious  specimens  among  my  visitors.  Half-witted  men 
from  the  almshouse  and  elsewhere  came  to  see  me ;  but 
I  endeavored  to  make  them  exercise  all  the  wit  they 
had,  and  make  their  confessions  to  me;  in  such  cases 
making  wit  the  theme  of  our  conversation;  and  so  was 
compensated.  Indeed,  I  found  some  of  them  to  be 
wiser  than  the  so-called  overseers  of  the  poor  and  select 
men  of  the  town,  and  thought  it  was  time  that  the 
tables  were  turned.  With  respect  to  wit,  I  learned  that 
there  was  not  much  difference  between  the  half  and  the 
whole.  One  day,  in  particular,  an  inoffensive,  simple- 
minded  pauper,  whom  with  others  I  had  often  seen 
used  as  fencing  stuff,  standing  or  sitting  on  a  bushel  in 
the  fields  to  keep  cattle  and  himself  from  straying, 
visited  me,  and  expressed  a  wish  to  live  as  I  did.  He 
told  me,  with  the  utmost  simplicity  and  truth,  quite 
superior,  or  rather  inferior,  to  anything  that  is  called 
humility,  that  he  was  "deficient  in  intellect.'*  These 
were  his  words.  The  Lord  had  made  him  so,  yet  he 
supposed  the  Lord  cared  as  much  for  him  as  for  an 
other.  "  I  have  always  been  so,"  said  he,  "  from  my  child 
hood;  I  never  had  much  mind;  I  was  not  like  other 
children;  I  am  weak  in  the  head.  It  was  the  Lord's 


168  WALDEN 

will,  I  suppose."  And  there  he  was  to  prove  the  truth 
of  his  words.  He  was  a  metaphysical  puzzle  to  me.  I 
have  rarely  met  a  fellow-man  on  such  promising  ground, 
—  it  was  so  simple  and  sincere  and  so  true  all  that  he 
said.  And,  true  enough,  in  proportion  as  he  appeared 
to  humble  himself  was  he  exalted.  I  did  not  know  at 
first  but  it  was  the  result  of  a  wise  policy.  It  seemed  that 
from  such  a  basis  of  truth  and  frankness  as  the  poor 
weak-headed  pauper  had  laid,  our  intercourse  might 
go  forward  to  something  better  than  the  intercourse  of 
sages. 

I  had  some  guests  from  those  not  reckoned  commonly 
among  the  town's  poor,  but  who  should  be;  who  are 
among  the  world's  poor,  at  any  rate;  guests  who  ap 
peal,  not  to  your  hospitality,  but  to  your  hospitalality  ; 
who  earnestly  wish  to  be  helped,  and  preface  their  ap 
peal  with  the  information  that  they  are  resolved,  for  one 
thing,  never  to  help  themselves.  I  require  of  a  visitor 
that  he  be  not  actually  starving,  though  he  may  have 
the  very  best  appetite  in  the  world,  however  he  got  it. 
Objects  of  charity  are  not  guests.  Men  who  did  not 
know  when  their  visit  had  terminated,  though  I  went 
about  my  business  again,  answering  them  from  greater 
and  greater  remoteness.  Men  of  almost  every  degree 
of  wit  called  on  me  in  the  migrating  season.  Some  who 
had  more  wits  than  they  knew  what  to  do  with;  run 
away  slaves  with  plantation  manners,  who  listened 
from  time  to  time,  like  the  fox  in  the  fable,  as  if  they 
heard  the  hounds  a-baying  on  their  track,  and  looked 
at  me  beseechingly,  as  much  as  to  say,  — 

"  O  Christian,  will  you  send  me  back  ? " 


VISITORS  169 

One  real  runaway  slave,  among  the  rest,  whom  I  helped 
to  forward  toward  the  north  star.  Men  of  one  idea,  like 
a  hen  with  one  chicken,  and  that  a  duckling;  men  of  a 
thousand  ideas,  and  unkempt  heads,  like  those  hens 
which  are  made  to  take  charge  of  a  hundred  chickens, 
all  in  pursuit  of  one  bug,  a  score  of  them  lost  in  every 
morning's  dew,  —  and  become  frizzled  and  mangy  in 
consequence ;  men  of  ideas  instead  of  legs,  a  sort  of  in 
tellectual  centipede  that  made  you  crawl  all  over.  One 
man  proposed  a  book  in  which  visitors  should  write  their 
names,  as  at  the  White  Mountains;  but,  alas!  I  have 
too  good  a  memory  to  make  that  necessary. 

I  could  not  but  notice  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  my 
visitors.  Girls  and  boys  and  young  women  generally 
seemed  glad  to  be  in  the  woods.  They  looked  in  the 
pond  and  at  the  flowers,  and  improved  their  time.  Men 
of  business,  even  farmers,  thought  only  of  solitude  and 
employment,  and  of  the  great  distance  at  which  I  dwelt 
from  something  or  other;  and  though  they  said  that 
they  loved  a  ramble  in  the  woods  occasionally,  it  was 
obvious  that  they  did  not.  Restless  committed  men, 
whose  time  was  all  taken  up  in  getting  a  living  or  keep 
ing  it;  ministers  who  spoke  of  God  as  if  they  enjoyed^ 
a  monopoly  of  the  subject,  who  could  not  bear  all  kinds 
of  opinion^;  doctors,  lawyers,  uneasy  housekeepers 
who  pried  into  my  cupboard  and  bed  when  I  was  out, 

—  how  came  Mrs.  to  know  that  my  sheets  were 

not  as  clean  as  hers  ?  —  young  men  who  had  ceased  to 
be  young,  and  had  concluded  that  it  was  safest  to  follow 
the  beaten  track  of  the  professions,  —  all  these  generally 
said  that  it  was  not  possible  to  do  so  much  good  in  my 


170  WALDEN 

position.  Ay !  there  was  the  rub.  The  old  and  infirm 
and  the  timid,  of  whatever  age  or  sex,  thought  most  of 
sickness,  and  sudden  accident  and  death;  to  them  life 
seemed  full  of  danger,  —  what  danger  is  there  if  you 
don't  think  of  any  ?  —  and  they  thought  that  a  prudent 
man  would  carefully  select  the  safest  position,  where 
Dr.  B.  might  be  on  hand  at  a  moment's  warning.  To 
them  the  village  was  literally  a  com-munity,  a  league  for 
mutual  defence,  and  you  would  suppose  that  they  would 
not  go  a-huckleberrying  without  a  medicine  chest.  The 
amount  of  it  is,  if  a  man  is  alive,  there  is  always  danger 
that  he  may  die,  though  the  danger  must  be  allowed  to 
be  less  in  proportion  as  he  is  dead-and-alive  to  begin 
with.  A  man  sits  as  many  risks  as  he  runs.  Finally,  there 
were  the  self-styled  reformers,  the  greatest  bores  of  all, 
who  thought  that  I  was  forever  singing,  — 

This  is  the  house  that  I  built; 

This  is  the  man  that  lives  in  the  house  that  I  built; 

but  they  did  not  know  that  the  third  line  was,  — 

These  are  the  folks  that  worry  the  man 
That  lives  in  the  house  that  I  built. 

I  did  not  fear  the  hen-harriers,  for  I  kept  no  chickens; 

but  I  feared  the  men-harriers  rather. 

«• 

I  had  more  cheering  visitors  than  the  last.  Children 
come  a-berrying,  railroad  men  taking  a  Sunday  morn 
ing  walk  in  clean  shirts,  fishermen  and  hunters,  poets 
and  philosophers;  in  short,  all  honest  pilgrims,  who 
came  out  to  the  woods  for  freedom's  sake,  and  really 
left  the  village  behind,  I  was  ready  to  greet  with,  — 
"Welcome,  Englishmen!  welcome,  Englishmen!"  for  I 
had  had  communication  with  that  race. 


VII 
THE  BEAN-FIELD 

J\1.EANWHILE  my  beans,  the  length  of  whose  rows, 
added  together,  was  seven  miles  already  planted,  were 
impatient  to  be  hoed,  for  the  earliest  had  grown  con 
siderably  before  the  latest  were  in  the  ground;  indeed 
they  were  not  easily  to  be  put  off.  What  was  the  mean 
ing  of  this  so  steady  and  self-respecting,  this  small  Her 
culean  labor,  I  knew  not.  I  came  to  love  my  rows,  my 
beans,  though  so  many  more  than  I  wanted.  They 
attached  me  to  the  earth,  and  so  I  got  strength  like 
Antaeus.  But  why  should  I  raise  them  ?  Only  Heaven 
knows.  This  was  my  curious  labor  all  summer,  —  to 
make  this  portion  of  the  earth's  surface,  which  had 
yielded  only  cinquefoil,  blackberries,  johnswort,  and 
the  like,  before,  sweet  wild  fruits  and  pleasant  flowers, 
produce  instead  this  pulse.  What  shall  I  learn  of  beans 
or  beans  of  me  ?  I  cherish  them,  I  hoe  them,  early  and 
late  I  have  an  eye  to  them ;  and  this  is  my  day's  work. 
It  is  a  fine  broad  leaf  to  look  on.  My  auxiliaries  are  the 
dews  and  rains  which  water  this  dry  soil,  and  what 
fertility  is  in  the  soil  itself,  which  for  the  most  part  is 
lean  and  effete.  My  enemies  are  worms,  cool  days,  and 
most  of  all  woodchucks.  The  last  have  nibbled  for  me 
a  quarter  of  an  acre  clean.  But  what  right  had  I  to 
oust  johnswort  and  the  rest,  and  break  up  their  ancient 


172  WALDEN 

herb  garden  ?  Soon,  however,  the  remaining  beans  will 
be  too  tough  for  them,  and  go  forward  to  meet  new  foes. 

When  I  was  four  years  old,  as  I  well  remember,  I  was 
brought  from  Boston  to  this  my  native  town,  through 
these  very  woods  and  this  field,  to  the  pond.  It  is  one  of 
the  oldest  scenes  stamped  on  my  memory.  And  now 
to-night  my  flute  has  waked  the  echoes  over  that  very 
water.  The  pines  still  stand  here  older  than  I;  or,  if 
some  have  fallen,  I  have  cooked  my  supper  with  their 
stumps,  and  a  new  growth  is  rising  all  around,  prepar 
ing  another  aspect  for  new  infant  eyes.  Almost  the 
same  johnswort  springs  from  the  same  perennial  root 
in  this  pasture,  and  even  I  have  at  length  helped  to 
clothe  that  fabulous  landscape  of  my  infant  dreams, 
and  one  of  the  results  of  my  presence  and  influence  is 
seen  in  these  bean  leaves,  corn  blades,  and  potato  vines. 

I  planted  about  two  acres  and  a  half  of  upland ;  and 
as  it  was  only  about  fifteen  years  since  the  land  was 
cleared,  and  I  myself  had  got  out  two  or  three  cords  of 
stumps,  I  did  not  give  it  any  manure;  but  in  the  course 
of  the  summer  it  appeared  by  the  arrowheads  which  I 
turned  up  in  hoeing,  that  an  extinct  nation  had  anciently 
dwelt  here  and  planted  corn  and  beans  ere  white  men 
came  to  clear  the  land,  and  so,  to  some  extent,  had  ex 
hausted  the  soil  for  this  very  crop. 

Before  yet  any  woodchuck  or  squirrel  had  run  across 
the  road,  or  the  sun  had  got  above  the  shrub  oaks,  while 
all  the  dew  was  on,  though  the  farmers  warned  me 
against  it,  —  I  would  advise  you  to  do  all  your  work  if 
possible  while  the  dew  is  on,  —  I  began  to  level  the 
ranks  of  haughty  weeds  in  my  bean-field  and  throw 


THE  BEAN-FIELD  173 

dust  upon  their  heads.  Early  in  the  morning  I  worked 
barefooted,  dabbling  like  a  plastic  artist  in  the  dewy 
and  crumbling  sand,  but  later  in  the  day  the  sun  blis 
tered  my  feet.  There  the  sun  lighted  me  to  hoe  beans, 
pacing  slowly  backward  and  forward  over  that  yellow 
gravelly  upland,  between  the  long  green  rows,  fifteen 
rods,  the  one  end  terminating  in  a  shrub  oak  copse 
where  I  could  rest  in  the  shade,  the  other  in  a  black 
berry  field  where  the  green  berries  deepened  their  tints 
by  the  time  I  had  made  another  bout.  Removing  the 
weeds,  putting  fresh  soil  about  the  bean  stems,  and 
encouraging  this  weed  which  I  had  sown,  making  the 
yellow  soil  express  its  summer  thought  in  bean  leaves 
and  blossoms  rather  than  in  wormwood  and  piper  and 
millet  grass,  making  the  earth  say  beans  instead  of 
grass,  —  this  was  my  daily  work.  As  I  had  little  aid 
from  horses  or  cattle,  or  hired  men  or  boys,  or  improved 
implements  of  husbandry,  I  was  much  slower,  and  be 
came  much  more  intimate  with  my  beans  than  usual. 
But  labor  of  the  hands,  even  when  pursued  to  the  verge 
of  drudgery,  is  perhaps  never  the  worst  form  of  idleness. 
It  has  a  constant  and  imperishable  moral,  and  to  the 
scholar  it  yields  a  classic  result.  A  very  agricola  labori- 
osus  was  I  to  travellers  bound  westward  through  Lin 
coln  and  Wayland  to  nobody  knows  where ;  they  sitting 
at  their  ease  in  gigs,  with  elbows  on  knees,  and  reins 
loosely  hanging  in  festoons ;  I  the  home-staying,  labori 
ous  native  of  the  soil.  But  soon  my  homestead  was  out 
of  their  sight  and  thought.  It  was  the  only  open  and 
cultivated  field  for  a  great  distance  on  either  side  of  the 
road,  so  they  made  the  most  of  it;  and  sometimes  the 


174  WALDEN 

man  in  the  field  heard  more  of  travellers'  gossip  and 
comment  than  was  meant  for  his  ear:  "Beans  so  late! 
peas  so  late ! "  —  for  I  continued  to  plant  when  others 
had  begun  to  hoe,  —  the  ministerial  husbandman  had 
not  suspected  it.  "Corn,  my  boy,  for  fodder;  corn  for 
fodder."  "  Does  he  live  there  ?  "  asks  the  black  bonnet 
of  the  gray  coat ;  and  the  hard-featured  farmer  reins  up 
his  grateful  dobbin  to  inquire  what  you  are  doing  where 
he  sees  no  manure  in  the  furrow,  and  recommends  a  little 
chip  dirt,  or  any  little  waste  stuff,  or  it  may  be  ashes 
or  plaster.  But  here  were  two  acres  and  a  half  of  fur 
rows,  and  only  a  hoe  for  cart  and  two  hands  to  draw  it, 
—  there  being  an  aversion  to  other  carts  and  horses,  — 
and  chip  dirt  far  away.  Fellow-travellers  as  they  rattled 
by  compared  it  aloud  with  the  fields  which  they  had 
passed,  so  that  I  came  to  know  how  I  stood  in  the  agri 
cultural  world.  This  was  one  field  not  in  Mr.  Colman's 
report.  And,  by  the  way,  who  estimates  the  value  of  the 
crop  which  nature  yields,  in  the  still  wilder  fields  unim 
proved  by  man  ?  The  crop  of  English  hay  is  carefully 
weighed,  the  moisture  calculated,  the  silicates  and  the 
potash ;  but  in  all  dells  and  pond-holes  in  the  woods  and 
pastures  and  swamps  grows  a  rich  and  various  crop 
only  unreaped  by  man.  Mine  was,  as  it  were,  the  con 
necting  link  between  wild  and  cultivated  fields;  as 
some  states  are  civilized,  and  others  half -civilized,  and 
others  savage  or  barbarous,  so  my  field  was,  though  not 
in  a  bad  sense,  a  half-cultivated  field.  They  were  beans 
cheerfully  returning  to  their  wild  and  primitive  state 
that  I  cultivated,  and  my  hoe  played  the  Ranz  des 
V aches  for  them. 


THE   BEAN-FIELD  175 

Near  at  hand,  upon  the  topmost  spray  of  a  birch, 
sings  the  brown  thrasher  —  or  red  mavis,  as  some  love 
to  call  him  —  all  the  morning,  glad  of  your  society, 
that  would  find  out  another  farmer's  field  if  yours  were 
not  here.  While  you  are  planting  the  seed,  he  cries,  — 
"  Drop  it,  drop  it,  —  cover  it  up,  cover  it  up,  —  pull  it 
up,  pull  it  up,  pull  it  up."  But  this  was  not  corn,  and  so 
it  was  safe  from  such  enemies  as  he.  You  may  wonder 
what  his  rigmarole,  his  amateur  Paganini  performances 
on  one  string  or  on  twenty,  have  to  do  with  your  plant 
ing,  and  yet  prefer  it  to  leached  ashes  or  plaster.  It  was 
a  cheap  sort  of  top  dressing  in  which  I  had  entire  faith. 

As  I  drew  a  still  fresher  soil  about  the  rows  with  my 
hoe,  I  disturbed  the  ashes  of  unchronicled  nations  who 
in  primeval  years  lived  under  these  heavens,  and  their 
small  implements  of  war  and  hunting  were  brought  to 
the  light  of  this  modern  day.  They  lay  mingled  with 
other  natural  stones,  some  of  which  bore  the  marks  of 
having  been  burned  by  Indian  fires,  and  some  by  the 
sun,  and  also  bits  of  pottery  and  glass  brought  hither 
by  the  recent  cultivators  of  the  soil.  When  my  hoe 
tinkled  against  the  stones,  that  music  echoed  to  the 
woods  and  the  sky,  and  was  an  accompaniment  to  my 
labor  which  yielded  an  instant  and  immeasurable  crop. 
It  was  no  longer  beans  that  I  hoed,  nor  I  that  hoed 
beans;  and  I  remembered  with  as  much  pity  as  pride, 
if  I  remembered  at  all,  my  acquaintances  who  had  gone 
to  the  city  to  attend  the  oratorios.  The  nighthawk 
circled  overhead  in  the  sunny  afternoons  —  for  I  some 
times  made  a  day  of  it  —  like  a  mote  in  the  eye,  or  in 
heaven's  eye,  falling  from  time  to  time  with  a  swoop 


176  WALDEN 

and  a  sound  as  if  the  heavens  were  rent,  torn  at  last  to 
very  rags  and  tattersi  and  yet  a  seamless  cope  remained; 
small  imps  that  fill  the  air  and  lay  their  eggs  on  the 
ground  on  bare  sand  or  rocks  on  the  tops  of  hills,  where 
few  have  found  them ;  graceful  and  slender  like  ripples 
caught  up  from  the  pond,  as  leaves  are  raised  by  the 
wind  to  float  in  the  heavens;  such  kindredship  is  in 
nature.  The  hawk  is  aerial  brother  of  the  wave  which 
he  sails  over  and  surveys,  those  his  perfect  air-inflated 
wings  answering  to  the  elemental  unfledged  pinions  of 
the  sea.  Or  sometimes  I  watched  a  pair  of  hen-hawks 
circling  high  in  the  sky,  alternately  soaring  and  de 
scending,  approaching  and  leaving  one  another,  as  if 
they  were  the  embodiment  of  my  own  thoughts.  Or  I 
was  attracted  by  the  passage  of  wild  pigeons  from  this 
wood  to  that,  with  a  slight  quivering  winnowing  sound 
and  carrier  haste;  or  from  under  a  rotten  stump  my 
hoe  turned  up  a  sluggish  portentous  and  outlandish 
spotted  salamander,  a  trace  of  Egypt  and  the  Nile,  yet 
our  contemporary.  When  I  paused  to  lean  on  my  hoe, 
these  sounds  and  sights  I  heard  and  saw  anywhere  in 
the  row,  a  part  of  the  inexhaustible  entertainment  which 
the  country  offers. 

On  gala  days  the  town  fires  its  great  guns,  which  echo 
like  popguns  to  these  woods,  and  some  waifs  of  martial 
music  occasionally  penetrate  thus  far.  To  me,  away 
there  in  my  bean-field  at  the  other  end  of  the  town,  the 
big  guns  sounded  as  if  a  puffball  had  burst;  and  when 
there  was  a  military  turnout  of  which  I  was  ignorant,  I 
have  sometimes  had  a  vague  sense  all  the  day  of  some 
sort  of  itching  and  disease  in  the  horizon,  as  if  some 


THE   BEAN-FIELD  177 

eruption  would  break  out  there  soon,  either  scarlatina  or 
canker-rash,  until  at  length  some  more  favorable  puff 
of  wind,  making  haste  over  the  fields  and  up  the  Way- 
land  road,  brought  me  information  of  the  "trainers." 
It  seemed  by  the  distant  hum  as  if  somebody's  bees  had 
swarmed,  and  that  the  neighbors,  according  to  Virgil's 
advice,  by  a  faint  tintinnabulum  upon  the  most  sonorous 
of  their  domestic  utensils,  were  endeavoring  to  call  them 
down  into  the  hive  again.  And  when  the  sound  died 
quite  away,  and  the  hum  had  ceased,  and  the  most  fa 
vorable  breezes  told  no  tale,  I  knew  that  they  had  got 
the  last  drone  of  them  all  safely  into  the  Middlesex 
hive,  and  that  now  their  minds  were  bent  on  the  honey 
with  which  it  was  smeared. 

I  felt  proud  to  know  that  the  liberties  of  Massachusetts 
and  of  our  fatherland  were  in  such  safe  keeping ;  and  as 
I  turned  to  my  hoeing  again  I  was  filled  with  an  inex 
pressible  confidence,  and  pursued  my  labor  cheerfully 
with  a  calm  trust  in  the  future. 

When  there  were  several  bands  of  musicians,  it 
sounded  as  if  all  the  village  was  a  vast  bellows,  and  all 
the  buildings  expanded  and  collapsed  alternately  with 
a  din.  But  sometimes  it  was  a  really  noble  and  inspir 
ing  strain  that  reached  these  woods,  and  the  trumpet 
that  sings  of  fame,  and  I  felt  as  if  I  could  spit  a  Mexican 
with  a  good  relish,  —  for  why  should  we  always  stand 
for  trifles  ?  —  and  looked  round  for  a  woodchuck  or  a 
skunk  to  exercise  my  chivalry  upon.  These  martial 
strains  seemed  as  far  away  as  Palestine,  and  reminded 
me  of  a  march  of  crusaders  in  the  horizon,  with  a  slight 
tantivy  and  tremulous  motion  of  the  elm  tree  tops  which 


178  WALDEN 

overhang  the  village.  This  was  one  of  the  great  days; 
though  the  sky  had  from  my  clearing  only  the  same 
everlastingly  great  look  that  it  wears  daily,  and  I  saw 
no  difference  in  it. 

It  was  a  singular  experience  that  long  acquaintance 
which  I  cultivated  with  beans,  what  with  planting,  and 
hoeing,  and  harvesting,  and  threshing,  and  picking 
over  and  selling  them,  —  the  last  was  the  hardest  of  all, 
—  I  might  add  eating,  for  I  did  taste.  I  was  determined 
to  know  beans.  When  they  were  growing,  I  used  to  hoe 
from  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  noon,  and  com« 
monly  spent  the  rest  of  the  day  about  other  affairs.  Con 
sider  the  intimate  and  curious  acquaintance  one  makea 
with  various  kinds  of  weeds,  —  it  will  bear  some  itera 
tion  in  the  account,  for  there  was  no  little  iteration  in  the 
labor,  —  disturbing  their  delicate  organizations  so  ruth 
lessly,  and  making  such  invidious  distinctions  with  his 
hoe,  levelling  whole  ranks  of  one  species,  and  sedulously 
cultivating  another.  That 's  Roman  wormwood,  — that 's 
pigweed,  —  that's  sorrel, — that's  piper-grass,  —  have 
at  him,  chop  him  up,  turn  his  roots  upward  to  the 
sun,  don't  let  him  have  a  fibre  in  the  shade,  if  you  do 
he  '11  turn  himself  t'other  side  up  and  be  as  green  as  a 
leek  in  two  days.  A  long  war,  not  with  cranes,  but  with 
weeds,  those  Trojans  who  had  sun  and  rain  and  dews 
on  their  side.  Daily  the  beans  saw  me  come  to  their 
rescue  armed  with  a  hoe,  and  thin  the  ranks  of  their 
enemies,  filling  up  the  trenches  with  weedy  dead.  Many 
a  lusty  crest-waving  Hector,  that  towered  a  whole  foot 
above  his  crowding  comrades,  fell  before  my  weapon 
and  rolled  in  the  dust. 


THE  BEAN-FIELD  179 

Those  summer  days  which  some  of  my  contempo 
raries  devoted  to  the  fine  arts  in  Boston  or  Rome,  and 
others  to  contemplation  in  India,  and  others  to  trade  in 
London  or  New  York,  I  thus,  with  the  other  farmers 
of  New  England,  devoted  to  husbandry.  Not  that  I 
wanted  beans  to  eat,  for  I  am  by  nature  a  Pythagorean, 
so  far  as  beans  are  concerned,  whether  they  mean  por 
ridge  or  voting,  and  exchanged  them  for  rice;  but,  per 
chance,  as  some  must  work  in  fields  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  tropes  and  expression,  to  serve  a  parable-maker  one 
day.  It  was  on  the  whole  a  rare  amusemeut,  which,  con 
tinued  too  long,  might  have  become  a  dissipation. 
Though  I  gave  them  no  manure,  and  did  not  hoe  them 
all  once,  I  hoed  them  unusually  well  as  far  as  I  went,  and 
was  paid  for  it  in  the  end,  "there  being  in  truth,"  as 
Evelyn  says,  "  no  compost  or  Isetation  whatsoever  com 
parable  to  this  continual  motion,  repastiriation,  and  turn 
ing  of  the  mould  with  the  spade."  "  The  earth,"  he  adds 
elsewhere,  "  especially  if  fresh,  has  a  certain  magnetism 
in  it,  by  which  it  attracts  the  salt,  power,  or  virtue  (call 
it  either)  which  gives  it  life,  and  is  the  logic  of  all  the  la 
bor  and  stir  we  keep  about  it,  to  sustain  us;  all  dungings 
and  other  sordid  temperings  being  but  the  vicars  suc- 
cedaneous  to  this  improvement."  Moreover,  this  being 
one  of  those  "  worn-out  and  exhausted  lay  fields  which 
enjoy  their  sabbath,"  had  perchance,  as  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby  thinks  likely,  attracted  "vital  spirits"  from  the 
air.  I  harvested  twelve  bushels  of  beans. 

But  to  be  more  particular,  for  it  is  complained  that 
Mr.  Colman  has  reported  chiefly  the  expensive  experi 
ments  of  gentlemen  farmers,  my  outgoes  were,  - 


180  WALDEN 

For  a  hoe  ..........  $0  54 

Plowing,  harrowing,  and  furrowing     .  7  50     Too  much. 

Beans  for  seed    ........  3  12£ 

Potatoes   "      .........  1  33 

Peas          "       ........     ,  0  40 

Turnip  seed    .........  0  06 

White  line  for  crow  fence      ....  0  02 

Horse  cultivator  and  boy  three  hours  .  1  00 

Horse  and  cart  to  get  crop    ....  0  75 

In  all       .........  14  72 


My  income  was  (patremfamilias  vendacem,  non  ema- 
cem  esse  oportet),  from 

Nine  bushels  and  twelve  quarts  of  beans  sold      .  $16  94 

Five        "        large  potatoes  ........  2  50 

Nine       "        small       ...     .......  2  25 

Grass     ...............  1  00 

Stalks    ...............  0  75 

In  all      .............  $23  44 

Leaving  a  pecuniary  profit,  as  I  have  elsewhere 

said,  of    .............     $8  71i 

This  is  the  result  of  my  experience  in  raising  beans  : 
Plant  the  common  small  white  bush  bean  about  the  first 
of  June,  in  rows  three  feet  by  eighteen  inches  apart,  be 
ing  careful  to  select  fresh  round  and  unmixed  seed.  First 
look  out  for  worms,  and  supply  vacancies  by  planting 
anew.  Then  look  out  for  woodchucks,  if  it  is  an  exposed 
place,  for  they  will  nibble  off  the  earliest  tender  leaves 
almost  clean  as  they  go;  and  again,  when  the  young 
tendrils  make  their  appearance,  they  have  notice  of  it, 


THE  BEAN-FIELD  181 

and  will  shear  them  off  with  both  buds  and  young  pods, 
sitting  erect  like  a  squirrel.  But  above  all  harvest  as 
early  as  possible,  if  you  would  escape  frosts  and  have  a 
fair  and  salable  crop;  you  may  save  much  loss  by  this 
means. 

This  further  experience  also  I  gained :  I  said  to  my 
self,  I  will  not  plant  beans  and  corn  with  so  much  in 
dustry  another  summer,  but  such  seeds,  if  the  seed  is  not 
lost,  as  sincerity,  truth,  simplicity,  faith,  innocence,  and 
the  like,  and  see  if  they  will  not  grow  in  this  soil,  even 
with  less  toil  and  manurance,  and  sustain  me,  for  surely 
it  has  not  been  exhausted  for  these  crops.  Alas!  I  said 
this  to  myself;  but  now  another  summer  is  gone,  and 
another,  and  another,  and  I  am  obliged  to  say  to  you, 
Reader,  that  the  seeds  which  I  planted,  if  indeed  they 
were  the  seeds  of  those  virtues,  were  wormeaten  or  had 
lost  their  vitality,  and  so  did  not  come  up.  Commonly 
men  will  only  be  brave  as  their  fathers  were  brave,  or 
timid.  This  generation  is  very  sure  to  plant  corn  and 
beans  each  new  year  precisely  as  the  Indians  did  cen 
turies  ago  and  taught  the  first  settlers  to  do,  as  if  there 
were  a  fate  in  it.  I  saw  an  old  man  the  other  day,  to  my 
astonishment,  making  the  holes  with  a  hoe  for  the  seven 
tieth  time  at  least,  and  not  for  himself  to  lie  down  in! 
But  why  should  not  the  New  Englander  try  new  ad 
ventures,  and  not  lay  so  much  stress  on  his  grain,  his 
potato  and  grass  crop,  and  his  orchards,  —  raise  other 
crops  than  these  ?  Why  concern  ourselves  so  much  about 
our  beans  for  seed,  and  not  be  concerned  at  all  about 
a  new  generation  of  men  ?  We  should  really  be  fed  and 
cheered  if  when  we  met  a  man  we  were  sure  to  see  that 


182  WALDEN 

some  of  the  qualities  which  I  have  named,  which  we  all 
prize  more  than  those  other  productions,  but  which  are 
for  the  most  part  broadcast  and  floating  in  the  air,  had 
taken  root  and  grown  in  him.  Here  comes  such  a  subtile 
and  ineffable  quality,  for  instance,  as  truth  or  justice, 
though  the  slightest  amount  or  new  variety  of  it,  along 
the  road.  Our  ambassadors  should  be  instructed  to 
send  home  such  seeds  as  these,  and  Congress  help  to  dis 
tribute  them  over  all  the  land.  We  should  never  stand 
upon  ceremony  with  sincerity.  We  should  never  cheat 
and  insult  and  banish  one  another  by  our  meanness,  if 
there  were  present  the  kernel  of  worth  and  friendliness. 
We  should  not  meet  thus  in  haste.  Most  men  I  do  not 
meet  at  all,  for  they  seem  not  to  have  time;  they  are 
busy  about  their  beans.  We  would  not  deal  with  a  man 
thus  plodding  ever,  leaning  on  a  hoe  or  a  spade  as  a  staff 
between  his  work,  not  as  a  mushroom,  but  partially 
risen  out  of  the  earth,  something  more  than  erect,  like 
swallows  alighted  and  walking  on  the  ground :  — 

"And  as  he  spake,  his  wings  would  now  and  then 
Spread,  as  he  meant  to  fly,  then  close  again,  — " 

so  that  we  should  suspect  that  we  might  be  conversing 
with  an  angel.  Bread  may  not  always  nourish  us;  but 
it  always  does  us  good,  it  even  takes  stiffness  out  of  our 
joints,  and  makes  us  supple  and  buoyant,  when  we 
knew  not  what  ailed  us,  to  recognize  any  generosity  in 
man  or  Nature,  to  share  any  unmixed  and  heroic  joy. 

Ancient  poetry  and  mythology  suggest,  at  least,  that 
husbandry  was  once  a  sacred  art ;  but  it  is  pursued  with 
irreverent  haste  and  heedlessness  by  us,  our  object  being 


THE   BEAN-FIELD  183 

to  have  large  farms  and  large  crops  merely.  We  have  no 
festival,  nor  procession,  nor  ceremony,  not  excepting 
our  cattle-shows  and  so-called  Thanksgivings,  by  which 
the  farmer  expresses  a  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  his  call 
ing,  or  is  reminded  of  its  sacred  origin.  It  is  the  pre 
mium  and  the  feast  which  tempt  him.  He  sacrifices  not 
to  Ceres  and  the  Terrestrial  Jove,  but  to  the  infernal 
Plutus  rather.  By  avarice  and  selfishness,  and  a  grovel 
ling  habit,  from  which  none  of  us  is  free,  of  regarding 
the  soil  as  property,  or  the  means  of  acquiring  property 
chiefly,  the  landscape  is  deformed,  husbandry  is  de 
graded  with  us,  and  the  farmer  leads  the  meanest  of 
lives.  He  knows  Nature  but  as  a  robber.  Cato  says  that 
the  profits  of  agriculture  are  particularly  pious  or  just 
(maximeque  pius  quaestus),  and  according  to  Varro  the 
old  Romans  "  called  the  same  earth  Mother  and  Ceres, 
and  thought  that  they  who  cultivated  it  led  a  pious  and 
useful  life,  and  that  they  alone  were  left  of  the  race  of 
King  Saturn." 

We  are  wont  to  forget  that  the  sun  looks  on  our  culti 
vated  fields  and  on  the  prairies  and  forests  without  dis 
tinction.  They  all  reflect  and  absorb  his  rays  alike,  and 
the  former  make  but  a  small  part  of  the  glorious  picture 
which  he  beholds  in  his  daily  course.  In  his  view  the 
earth  is  all  equally  cultivated  like  a  garden.  Therefore 
we  should  receive  the  benefit  of  his  light  and  heat  with 
a  corresponding  trust  and  magnanimity.  What  though 
I  value  the  seed  of  these  beans,  and  harvest  that  in  the 
fall  of  the  year  ?  This  broad  field  which  I  have  looked  at 
so  long  looks  not  to  me  as  the  principal  cultivator,  but 
away  from  me  to  influences  more  genial  to  it,  which 


184  WALDEN 

water  and  make  it  green.  These  beans  have  results  which 
are  not  harvested  by  me.  Do  they  not  grow  for  wood- 
chucks  partly  ?  The  ear  of  wheat  (in  Latin  spica,  ob- 
soletely  speca,  from  spe,  hope)  should  not  be  the  only 
hope  of  the  husbandman;  its  kernel  or  grain  (granum^ 
from  gerendo,  bearing)  is  not  all  that  it  bears.  How, 
then,  can  our  harvest  fail  ?  Shall  I  not  rejoice  also  at  the 
abundance  of  the  weeds  whose  seeds  are  the  granary  of 
the  birds  ?  It  matters  little  comparatively  whether  the 
fields  fill  the  farmer's  barns.  The  true  husbandman  will 
cease  from  anxiety,  as  the  squirrels  manifest  no  con 
cern  whether  the  woods  will  bear  chestnuts  this  year  or 
not,  and  finish  his  labor  with  every  day,  relinquishing  all 
claim  to  the  produce  of  his  fields,  and  sacrificing  in  his 
mind  not  only  his  first  but  his  last  fruits  also. 


VIII 
THE  VILLAGE 

AFTER  hoeing,  or  perhaps  reading  and  writing,  in 
the  forenoon,  I  usually  bathed  again  in  the  pond,  swim 
ming  across  one  of  its  coves  for  a  stint,  and  washed  the 
dust  of  labor  from  my  person,  or  smoothed  out  the  last 
wrinkle  which  study  had  made,  and  for  the  afternoon 
was  absolutely  free.  Every  day  or  two  I  strolled  to  the 
village  to  hear  some  of  the  gossip  which  is  incessantly 
going  on  there,  circulating  either  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
or  from  newspaper  to  newspaper,  and  which,  taken  in 
homoeopathic  doses,  was  really  as  refreshing  in  its  way  as 
the  rustle  of  leaves  and  the  peeping  of  frogs.  As  I  walked 
in  the  woods  to  see  the  birds  and  squirrels,  so  I  walked 
in  the  village  to  see  the  men  and  boys;  instead  of  the 
wind  among  the  pines  I  heard  the  carts  rattle.  In  one 
direction  from  my  house  there  was  a  colony  of  musk- 
rats  in  the  river  meadows ;  under  the  grove  of  elms  and 
buttonwoods  in  the  other  horizon  was  a  village  of  busy 
men,  as  curious  to  me  as  if  they  had  been  prairie-dogs, 
each  sitting  at  the  mouth  of  its  burrow,  or  running  over 
to  a  neighbor's  to  gossip.  I  went  there  frequently  to  ob 
serve  their  habits.  The  village  appeared  to  me  a  great 
news  room;  and  on  one  side,  to  support  it,  as  once  at 
Redding  &  Company's  on  State  Street,  they  kept  nuts 
and  raisins,  or  salt  and  meal  and  other  groceries.  Some 


186  WALDEN 

have  such  a  vast  appetite  for  the  former  commodity, 
that  is,  the  news,  and  such  sound  digestive  organs,  that 
they  can  sit  forever  in  public  avenues  without  stirring, 
and  let  it  simmer  and  whisper  through  them  like  the 
Etesian  winds,  or  as  if  inhaling  ether,  it  only  producing 
numbness  and  insensibility  to  pain,  —  otherwise  it 
would  often  be  painful  to  hear,  — without  affecting  the 
consciousness.  I  hardly  ever  failed,  when  I  rambled 
through  the  village,  to  see  a  row  of  such  worthies,  either 
sitting  on  a  ladder  sunning  themselves,  with  their  bodies 
inclined  forward  and  their  eyes  glancing  along  the  line 
this  way  and  that,  from  time  to  time,  with  a  voluptuous 
expression,  or  else  leaning  against  a  barn  with  their 
hands  in  their  pockets,  like  caryatides,  as  if  to  prop  it  up. 
They,  being  commonly  out  of  doors,  heard  whatever 
was  in  the  wind.  These  are  the  coarsest  mills,  in  which 
all  gossip  is  first  rudely  digested  or  cracked  up  before  it 
is  emptied  into  finer  and  more  delicate  hoppers  within 
doors.  I  observed  that  the  vitals  of  the  village  were  the 
grocery,  the  bar-room,  the  post-office,  and  the  bank; 
and,  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  machinery,  they  kept  a 
bell,  a  big  gun,  and  a  fire-engine,  at  convenient  places; 
and  the  houses  were  so  arranged  as  to  make  the  most  of 
mankind,  in  lanes  and  fronting  one  another,  so  that 
every  traveller  had  to  run  the  gauntlet,  and  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  might  get  a  lick  at  him.  Of  course, 
those  who  were  stationed  nearest  to  the  head  of  the  line, 
where  they  could  most  see  and  be  seen,  and  have  the  first 
blow  at  him,  paid  the  highest  prices  for  their  places; 
and  the  few  straggling  inhabitants  in  the  outskirts,  where 
Vong  gaps  in  the  line  began  to  occur,  and  the  traveller 


THE  VILLAGE  187 

could  get  over  walls  or  turn  aside  into  cow-paths,  and  so 
escape,  paid  a  very  slight  ground  or  window  tax.  Signs 
were  hung  out  on  all  sides  to  allure  him ;  some  to  catch 
him  by  the  appetite,  as  the  tavern  and  victualling  cellar; 
some  by  the  fancy,  as  the  dry  goods  store  and  the  jewel 
ler's  ;  and  others  by  the  hair  or  the  feet  or  the  skirts,  as 
the  barber,  the  shoemaker,  or  the  tailor."  Besides,  there 
was  a  still  more  terrible  standing  invitation  to  call  at 
every  one  of  these  houses,  and  company  expected  about 
these  times.  For  the  most  part  I  escaped  wonderfully 
from  these  dangers,  either  by  proceeding  at  once  boldly 
and  without  deliberation  to  the  goal,  as  is  recommended 
to  those  who  run  the  gauntlet,  or  by  keeping  my  thoughts 
on  high  things,  like  Orpheus,  who,  "  loudly  singing  the 
praises  of  the  gods  to  his  lyre,  drowned  the  voices  of  the 
Sirens,  and  kept  out  of  danger."  Sometimes  I  bolted 
suddenly,  and  nobody  could  tell  my  whereabouts,  for  I 
did  not  stand  much  about  gracefulness,  and  never  hesi 
tated  at  a  gap  in  a  fence.  I  was  even  accustomed  to 
make  an  irruption  into  some  houses,  where  I  was  well 
entertained,  and  after  learning  the  kernels  and  very  last 
sieveful  of  news,  —  what  had  subsided,  the  prospects  of 
war  and  peace,  and  whether  the  world  was  likely  to  hold 
together  much  longer,  —  I  was  let  out  through  the  rear 
avenues,  and  so  escaped  to  the  woods  again. 

It  was  very  pleasant,  when  I  stayed  late  in  town,  to 
launch  myself  into  the  night,  especially  if  it  was  dark 
and  tempestuous,  and  set  sail  from  some  bright  village 
parlor  or  lecture  room,  with  a  bag  of  rye  or  Indian  meal 
upon  my  shoulder,  for  my  snug  harbor  in  the  woods, 
having  made  all  tight  without  and  withdrawn  under 


188  WALDEN 

hatches  with  a  merry  crew  of  thoughts,  leaving  only  my 
outer  man  at  the  helm,  or  even  tying  up  the  helm  when 
it  was  plain  sailing.  I  had  many  a  genial  thought  by  the 
cabin  fire  "as  I  sailed."  I  was  never  cast  away  nor  dis 
tressed  in  any  weather,  though  I  encountered  some  se 
vere  storms.  It  is  darker  in  the  woods,  even  in  common 
nights,  than  most  suppose.  I  frequently  had  to  look  up 
at  the  opening  between  the  trees  above  the  path  in 
order  to  learn  my  route,  and,  where  there  was  no  cart- 
path,  to  feel  with  my  feet  the  faint  track  which  I  had 
worn,  or  steer  by  the  known  relation  of  particular  trees 
which  I  felt  with  my  hands,  passing  between  two  pines 
for  instance,  not  more  than  eighteen  inches  apart,  in  the 
midst  of  the  woods,  invariably,  in  the  darkest  night. 
Sometimes,  after  coming  home  thus  late  in  a  dark  and 
muggy  night,  when  my  feet  felt  the  path  which  my  eyes 
could  not  see,  dreaming  and  absent-minded  all  the  way, 
until  I  was  aroused  by  having  to  raise  my  hand  to  lift  the 
latch,  I  have  not  been  able  to  recall  a  single  step  of  my 
walk,  and  I  have  thought  that  perhaps  my  body  would 
find  its  way  home  if  its  master  should  forsake  it,  as  the 
hand  finds  its  way  to  the  mouth  without  assistance. 
Several  times,  when  a  visitor  chanced  to  stay  into  even 
ing,  and  it  proved  a  dark  night,  I  was  obliged  to  conduct 
him  to  the  cart-path  in  the  rear  of  the  house,  and  then 
point  out  to  him  the  direction  he  was  to  pursue,  and  in 
keeping  which  he  was  to  be  guided  rather  by  his  feet 
than  his  eyes.  One  very  dark  night  I  directed  thus  on 
their  way  two  young  men  who  had  been  fishing  in  the 
pond.  They  lived  about  a  mile  off  through  the  woods, 
and  were  quite  used  to  the  route.  A  day  or  two  after  one 


THE   VILLAGE  189 

of  them  told  me  that  they  wandered  about  the  greater 
part  of  the  night,  close  by  their  own  premises,  and  did 
not  get  home  till  toward  morning,  by  which  time,  as 
there  had  been  several  heavy  showers  in  the  meanwhile, 
and  the  leaves  were  very  wet,  they  were  drenched  to 
their  skins.  I  have  heard  of  many  going  astray  even  in 
the  village  streets,  when  the  darkness  was  so  thick  that 
you  could  cut  it  with  a  knife,  as  the  saying  is.  Some  who 
live  in  the  outskirts,  having  come  to  town  a-shopping 
in  their  wagons,  have  been  obliged  to  put  up  for  the 
night;  and  gentlemen  and  ladies  making  a  call  have 
gone  half  a  mile  out  of  their  way,  feeling  the  sidewalk 
only  with  their  feet,  and  not  knowing  when  they  turned. 
It  is  a  surprising  and  memorable,  as  well  as  valuable  ex 
perience,  to  be  lost  in  the  woods  any  time.  Often  in  a 
snow-storm,  even  by  day,  one  will  come  out  upon  a  well- 
known  road  and  yet  find  it  impossible  to  tell  which  way 
leads  to  the  village.  Though  he  knows  that  he  has  trav 
elled  it  a  thousand  times,  he  cannot  recognize  a  feature 
in  it,  but  it  is  as  strange  to  him  as  if  it  were  a  road  in 
Siberia.  By  night,  of  course,  the  perplexity  is  infinitely 
greater.  In  our  most  trivial  walks,  we  are  constantly, 
though  unconsciously,  steering  like  pilots  by  certain 
well-known  beacons  and  headlands,  and  if  we  go  be 
yond  our  usual  course  we  still  carry  in  our  minds  the 
bearing  of  some  neighboring  cape;  and  not  till  we  are 
completely  lost,  or  turned  round,  —  for  a  man  needs 
only  to  be  turned  round  once  with  his  eyes  shut  in  this 
world  to  be  lost,  —  do  we  appreciate  the  vastness  and 
strangeness  of  nature.  Every  man  has  to  learn  the 
points  of  compass  again  as  often  as  he  awakes,  whether 


190  WALDEN 

from  sleep  or  any  abstraction.  Not  till  we  are  lost,  in 
other  words  not  till  we  have  lost  the  world,  do  we  begin 
to  find  ourselves,  and  realize  where  we  are  and  the  in 
finite  extent  of  our  relations. 

One  afternoon,  near  the  end  of  the  first  summer,  when 
I  went  to  the  village  to  get  a  shoe  from  the  cobbler's,  I 
was  seized  and  put  into  jail,  because,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
related,  I  did  not  pay  a  tax  to,  or  recognize  the  authority 
of,  the  State  which  buys  and  sells  men,  women,  and  chil- 
drjen,  like  cattle,  at  the  door  of  its  senate-house.  I  had 
gone  down  to  the  woods  for  other  purposes.  But,  wher 
ever  a  man  goes,  men  will  pursue  and  paw  him  with 
their  dirty  institutions,  and,  if  they  can,  constrain  him 
to  belong  to  their  desperate  odd-fellow  society.  It  is 
true,  I  might  have  resisted  forcibly  with  more  or  less 
effect,  might  have  run  "amok"  against  society;  but  I 
preferred  that  society  should  run  "  amok  "  against  me,  it 
being  the  desperate  party.  However,  I  was  released  the 
next  day,  obtained  my  mended  shoe,  and  returned  to  the 
woods  in  season  to  get  my  dinner  of  huckleberries  on 
Fair  Haven  Hill.  I  was  never  molested  by  any  person 
but  those  who  represented  the  State.  I  had  no  lock  nor 
bolt  but  for  the  desk  which  held  my  papers,  not  even  a 
nail  to  put  over  my  latch  or  windows.  I  never  fastened 
my  door  night  or  day,  though  I  was  to  be  absent  several 
days ;  not  even  when  the  next  fall  I  spent  a  fortnight  in 
the  woods  of  Maine.  And  yet  my  house  was  more  re 
spected  than  if  it  had  been  surrounded  by  a  file  of  sol 
diers.  The  tired  rambler  could  rest  and  warm  himself  by 
my  fire,  the  literary  amuse  himself  with  the  few  books  on 
my  table,  or  the  curious,  by  opening  my  closet  door,  see 


THE   VILLAGE  191 

what  was  left  of  my  dinner,  and  what  prospect  I  had  of  a 
supper.  Yet,  though  many  people  of  every  class  came 
this  way  to  the  pond,  I  suffered  no  serious  inconvenience 
from  these  sources,  and  I  never  missed  anything  but  one 
small  book,  a  volume  of  Homer,  which  perhaps  was  im 
properly  gilded,  and  this  I  trust  a  soldier  of  our  camp 
has  found  by  this  time.  I  am  convinced,  that  if  all  men 
were  to  live  as  simply  as  I  then  did,  thieving  and  robbery 
would  be  unknown.  These  take  place  only  in  com 
munities  where  some  have  got  more  than  is  sufficient 
while  others  have  not  enough.  The  Pope's  Homers 
would  soon  get  properly  distributed. 

"  Nee  bella  fuerunt, 
Faginus  astabat  dum  scyphus  ante  dapes." 

"Nor  wars  did  men  molest, 
When  only  beechen  bowls  were  in  request." 

"  You  who  govern  public  affairs,  what  need  have  you  to 
employ  punishments  ?  Love  virtue,  and  the  people  will 
be  virtuous.  The  virtues  of  a  superior  man  are  like  the 
wind;  the  virtues  of  a  common  man  are  like  the  grass; 
the  grass,  when  the  wind  passes  over  it,  bends." 


IX 

THE  PONDS 

SOMETIMES,  having  had  a  surfeit  of  human  society 
and  gossip,  and  worn  out  all  my  village  friends,  I  ram 
bled  still  farther  westward  than  I  habitually  dwell,  into 
yet  more  unfrequented  parts  of  the  town,  "to  fresh 
woods  and  pastures  new,"  or,  while  the  sun  was  setting, 
made  my  supper  of  huckleberries  and  blueberries  on 
Fair  Haven  Hill,  and  laid  up  a  store  for  several  days. 
The  fruits  do  not  yield  their  true  flavor  to  the  purchaser 
of  them,  nor  to  him  who  raises  them  for  the  market. 
There  is  but  one  way  to  obtain  it,  yet  few  take  that  way. 
If  you  would  know  the  flavor  of  huckleberries,  ask  the 
cow-boy  or  the  partridge.  It  is  a  vulgar  error  to  suppose 
that  you  have  tasted  huckleberries  who  never  plucked 
them.  A  huckleberry  never  reaches  Boston;  they  have 
not  been  known  there  since  they  grew  on  her  three  hills. 
The  ambrosial  and  essential  part  of  the  fruit  is  lost  with 
the  bloom  which  is  rubbed  off  in  the  market  cart,  and 
they  become  mere  provender.  As  long  as  Eternal  Jus 
tice  reigns,  not  one  innocent  huckleberry  can  be  trans 
ported  thither  from  the  country's  hills. 

Occasionally,  after  my  hoeing  was  done  for  the  day, 
I  joined  some  impatient  companion  who  had  been  fish 
ing  on  the  pond  since  morning,  as  silent  and  motionless 
as  a  duck  or  a  floating  leaf,  and,  after  practising  various 


THE   PONDS  193 

kinds  of  philosophy,  had  concluded  commonly,  by  the 
time  I  arrived,  that  he  belonged  to  the  ancient  sect  of 
Coenobites.  There  was  one  older  man,  an  excellent  fisher 
and  skilled  in  all  kinds  of  woodcraft,  who  was  pleased  to 
look  upon  my  house  as  a  building  erected  for  the  con 
venience  of  fishermen;  and  I  was  equally  pleased  when 
he  sat  in  my  doorway  to  arrange  his  lines.  Once  in  a 
while  we  sat  together  on  the  pond,  he  at  one  end  of  the 
boat,  and  I  at  the  other;  but  not  many  words  passed 
between  us,  for  he  had  grown  deaf  in  his  later  years, 
but  he  occasionally  hummed  a  psalm,  which  harmonized 
well  enough  with  my  philosophy.  Our  intercourse  was 
thus  altogether  one  of  unbroken  harmony,  far  more 
pleasing  to  remember  than  if  it  had  been  carried  on  by 
speech.  When,  as  was  commonly  the  case,  I  had  none 
to  commune  with,  I  used  to  raise  the  echoes  by  striking 
with  a  paddle  on  the  side  of  my  boat,  filling  the  sur 
rounding  woods  with  circling  and  dilating  sound,  stir 
ring  them  up  as  the  keeper  of  a  menagerie  his  wild 
beasts,  until  I  elicited  a  growl  from  every  wooded  vale 
and  hillside. 

In  warm  evenings  I  frequently  sat  in  the  boat  playing 
the  flute,  and  saw  the  perch,  which  I  seem  to  have 
charmed,  hovering  around  me,  and  the  moon  travelling 
over  the  ribbed  bottom,  which  was  strewed  with  the 
wrecks  of  the  forest.  Formerly  I  had  come  to  this  pond 
adventurously,  from  time  to  time,  in  dark  summer 
nights,  with  a  companion,  and,  making  a  fire  close  to  the 
water's  edge,  which  we  thought  attracted  the  fishes,  we 
caught  pouts  with  a  bunch  of  worms  strung  on  a  thread, 
and  when  we  had  done,  far  in  the  night,  threw  the  burn- 


194  WALDEN 

ing  brands  high  into  the  air  like  skyrockets,  which,  com 
ing  down  into  the  pond,  were  quenched  with  a  loud 
hissing,  and  we  were  suddenly  groping  in  total  dark 
ness.  Through  this,  whistling  a  tune,  we  took  our  way 
to  the  haunts  of  men  again.  But  now  I  had  made  my 
home  by  the  shore. 

Sometimes,  after  staying  in  a  village  parlor  till  the 
family  had  all  retired,  I  have  returned  to  the  woods, 
and,  partly  with  a  view  to  the  next  day's  dinner,  spent 
the  hours  of  midnight  fishing  from  a  boat  by  moonlight, 
serenaded  by  owls  and  foxes,  and  hearing,  from  time  to 
time,  the  creaking  note  of  some  unknown  bird  close  at 
hand.  These  experiences  were  very  memorable  and 
valuable  to  me,  —  anchored  in  forty  feet  of  water,  and 
twenty  or  thirty  rods  from  the  shore,  surrounded  some 
times  by  thousands  of  small  perch  and  shiners,  dim 
pling  the  surface  with  their  tails  in  the  moonlight,  and 
communicating  by  a  long  flaxen  line  with  mysterious 
nocturnal  fishes  which  had  their  dwelling  forty  feet  be 
low,  or  sometimes  dragging  sixty  feet  of  line  about  the 
pond  as  I  drifted  in  the  gentle  night  breeze,  now  and 
then  feeling  a  slight  vibration  along  it,  indicative  of 
some  life  prowling  about  its  extremity,  of  dull  uncertain 
blundering  purpose  there,  and  slow  to  make  up  its 
mind.  At  length  you  slowly  raise,  pulling  hand  over 
hand,  some  horned  pout  squeaking  and  squirming  to 
the  upper  air.  It  was  very  queer,  especially  in  dark 
nights,  when  your  thoughts  had  wandered  to  vast  and 
cosmogonal  themes  in  other  spheres,  to  feel  this  faint 
jerk,  which  came  to  interrupt  your  dreams  and  link 
you  to  Nature  again.  It  seemed  as  if  I  might  next  cast 


THE   PONDS  195 

my  line  upward  into  the  air,  as  well  as  downward  into 
this  element,  which  was  scarcely  more  dense.  Thus  I 
caught  two  fishes  as  it  were  with  one  hook. 

The  scenery  of  Walden  is  on  a  humble  scale,  and, 
though  very  beautiful,  does  not  approach  to  grandeur, 
nor  can  it  much  concern  one  who  has  not  long  frequented  / 
it  or  lived  by  its  shore;  yet  this  pond  is  so  remarkable 
for  its  depth  and  purity  as  to  merit  a  particular  descrip 
tion.  It  is  a  clear  and  deep  green  well,  half  a  mile  long 
and  a  mile  and  three  quarters  in  circumference,  and 
contains  about  sixty-one  and  a  half  acres;  a  perennial 
spring  in  the  midst  of  pine  and  oak  woods,  without  any 
visible  inlet  or  outlet  except  by  the  clouds  and  evapora 
tion.  The  surrounding  hills  rise  abruptly  from  the 
water  to  the  height  of  forty  to  eighty  feet,  though  on  the 
southeast  and  east  they  attain  to  about  one  hundred 
and  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  respectively,  within  a 
quarter  and  a  third  of  a  mile.  They  are  exclusively 
woodland.  All  our  Concord  waters  have  two  colors  at 
least;  one  when  viewed  at  a  distance,  and  another,  more 
proper,  close  at  hand.  The  first  depends  more  on  the 
light,  and  follows  the  sky.  In  clear  weather,  in  summer, 
they  appear  blue  at  a  little  distance,  especially  if  agitated, 
and  at  a  great  distance  all  appear  alike.  In  stormy 
weather  they  are  sometimes  of  a  dark  slate-color.  The 
sea,  however,  is  said  to  be  blue  one  day  and  green  an 
other  without  any  perceptible  change  in  the  atmosphere. 
I  have  seen  our  river,  when,  the  landscape  being  covered 
with  snow,  both  water  and  ice  were  almost  as  green  as 
grass.  Some  consider  blue  "to  be  the  color  of  pure 


196  WALDEN 

water,  whether  liquid  or  solid."  But,  looking  directly 
down  into  our  waters  from  a  boat,  they  are  seen  to  be 
of  very  different  colors.  Walden  is  blue  at  one  time  and 
green  at  another,  even  from  the  same  point  of  view. 
Lying  between  the  earth  and  the  heavens,  it  partakes  of 
the  color  of  both.  Viewed  from  a  hilltop  it  reflects  the 
color  of  the  sky;  but  near  at  hand  it  is  of  a  yellowish 
tint  next  the  shore  where  you  can  see  the  sand,  then  a 
]:ght  green,  which  gradually  deepens  to  a  uniform  dark 
green  in  the  body  of  the  pond.  In  some  lights,  viewed 
even  from  a  hilltop,  it  is  of  a  vivid  green  next  the  shore. 
Some  have  referred  this  to  the  reflection  of  the  verdure ; 
but  it  is  equally  green  there  against  the  railroad  sand 
bank,  and  in  the  spring,  before  the  leaves  are  expanded, 
and  it  may  be  simply  the  result  of  the  prevailing  blue 
mixed  with  the  yellow  of  the  sand.  Such  is  the  color  of 
its  iris.  This  is  that  portion,  also,  where  in  the  spring, 
the  ice  being  warmed  by  the  heat  of  the  sun  reflected 
from  the  bottom,  and  also  transmitted  through  the 
earth,  melts  first  and  forms  a  narrow  canal  about  the 
still  frozen  middle.  Like  the  rest  of  our  waters,  when 
much  agitated,  in  clear  weather,  so  that  the  surface  of 
the  waves  may  reflect  the  sky  at  the  right  angle,  or  be 
cause  there  is  more  light  mixed  with  it,  it  appears  at  a 
little  distance  of  a  darker  blue  than  the  sky  itself ;  and 
at  such  a  time,  being  on  its  surface,  and  looking  with 
divided  vision,  so  as  to  see  the  reflection,  I  have  dis 
cerned  a  matchless  and  indescribable  light  blue,  such  as 
watered  or  changeable  silks  and  sword  blades  suggest, 
more  cerulean  than  the  sky  itself,  alternating  with  the  ori 
ginal  dark  green  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  waves,  which 


THE  PONDS  197 

last  appeared  but  muddy  in  comparison.  It  is  a  vitreous 
greenish  blue,  as  I  remember  it,  like  those  patches  of 
the  winter  sky  seen  through  cloud  vistas  in  the  west 
before  sundown.  Yet  a  single  glass  of  its  water  held  up 
to  the  light  is  as  colorless  as  an  equal  quantity  of  air. 
It  is  well  known  that  a  large  plate  of  glass  will  have  a 
green  tint,  owing,  as  the  makers  say,  to  its  "  body,"  but 
a  small  piece  of  the  same  will  be  colorless.  How  large 
a  body  of  Walden  water  would  be  required  to  reflect  a 
green  tint  I  have  never  proved.  The  water  of  our  river 
is  black  or  a  very  dark  brown  to  one  looking  directly 
down  on  it,  and,  like  that  of  most  ponds,  imparts  to  the 
body  of  one  bathing  in  it  a  yellowish  tinge;  but  this 
water  is  of  such  crystalline  purity  that  the  body  of  the 
bather  appears  of  an  alabaster  whiteness,  still  more 
unnatural,  which,  as  the  limbs  are  magnified  and  dis 
torted  withal,  produces  a  monstrous  effect,  making  fit 
studies  for  a  Michael  Angelo. 

The  water  is  so  transparent  that  the  bottom  can  easily 
be  discerned  at  the  depth  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet. 
Paddling  over  it,  you  may  see,  many  feet  beneath  the 
surface,  the  schools  of  perch  and  shiners,  perhaps  only 
an  inch  long,  yet  the  former  easily  distinguished  by 
their  transverse  bars,  and  you  think  that  they  must  be 
ascetic  fish  that  find  a  subsistence  there.  Once,  in  the 
winter,  many  years  ago,  when  I  had  been  cutting  holes 
through  the  ice  in  order  to  catch  pickerel,  as  I  stepped 
ashore  I  tossed  my  axe  back  on  to  the  ice,  but,  as  if 
some  evil  genius  had  directed  it,  it  slid  four  or  five  rods 
directly  into  one  of  the  holes,  where  the  water  was 
twenty-five  feet  deep.  Out  of  curiosity,  I  lay  down  on 


198  WALDEN 

the  ice  and  looked  through  the  hole,  until  I  saw  the  axe 
a  little  on  one  side,  standing  on  its  head,  with  its  helve 
erect  and  gently  swaying  to  and  fro  with  the  pulse  of  the 
pond ;  and  there  it  might  have  stood  erect  and  swaying 
till  in  the  course  of  time  the  handle  rotted  off,  if  I  had 
not  disturbed  it.  Making  another  hole  directly  over  it 
with  an  ice  chisel  which  I  had,  and  cutting  down  the 
longest  birch  which  I  could  find  in  the  neighborhood 
with  my  knife,  I  made  a  slip-noose,  which  I  attached  to 
its  end,  and,  letting  it  down  carefully,  passed  it  over  the 
knob  of  the  handle,  and  drew  it  by  a  line  along  the 
birch,  and  so  pulled  the  axe  out  again. 

The  shore  is  composed  of  a  belt  of  smooth  rounded 
white  stones  like  paving-stones,  excepting  one  or  two 
short  sand  beaches,  and  is  so  steep  that  in  many  places 
a  single  leap  will  carry  you  into  water  over  your  head; 
and  were  it  not  for  its  remarkable  transparency,  that 
would  be  the  last  to  be  seen  of  its  bottom  till  it  rose  on 
the  opposite  side.  Some  think  it  is  bottomless.  It  is 
nowhere  muddy,  and  a  casual  observer  would  say  that 
there  were  no  weeds  at  all  in  it ;  and  of  noticeable  plants, 
except  in  the  little  meadows  recently  overflowed,  which 
do  not  properly  belong  to  it,  a  closer  scrutiny  does  not 
detect  a  flag  nor  a  bulrush,  nor  even  a  lily,  yellow  or 
white,  but  only  a  few  small  heart-leaves  and  potamo- 
getons,  and  perhaps  a  water-target  or  two;  all  which 
however  a  bather  might  not  perceive;  and  these  plants 
are  clean  and  bright  like  the  element  they  grow  in.  The 
stones  extend  a  rod  or  two  into  the  water,  and  then  the 
bottom  is  pure  sand,  except  in  the  deepest  parts,  where 
there  is  usually  a  little  sediment,  probably  from  the  de- 


THE  PONDS  199 

cay  of  the  leaves  which  have  been  wafted  on  to  it  so 
many  successive  falls,  and  a  bright  green  weed  is  brought 
up  on  anchors  even  in  midwinter. 

We  have  one  other  pond  just  like  this,  White  Pond,  in 
Nine  Acre  Corner,  about  two  and  a  half  miles  westerly  ; 
but,  though  I  am  acquainted  with  most  of  the  ponds 
within  a  dozen  miles  of  this  centre,  I  do  not  know  a 
third  of  this  pure  and  well-like  character.  Successive 
nations  perchance  have  drank  at,  admired,  and  fath 
omed  it,  and  passed  away,  and  still  its  water  is  green 
and  pellucid  as  ever.  Not  an  intermitting  spring !  Per 
haps  on  that  spring  morning  when  Adam  and  Eve  were 
driven  out  of  Eden  Walden  Pond  was  already  in  exist 
ence,  and  even  then  breaking  up  in  a  gentle  spring 
rain  accompanied  with  mist  and  a  southerly  wind,  and 
covered  with  myriads  of  ducks  and  geese,  which  had 
not  heard  of  the  fall,  when  still  such  pure  lakes  sufficed 
them.  Even  then  it  had  commenced  to  rise  and  fall, 
and  had  clarified  its  waters  and  colored  them  of  the 
hue  they  now  wear,  and  obtained  a  patent  of  Heaven 
to  be  the  only  Walden  Pond  in  the  world  and  distiller  of 
celestial  dews.  Who  knows  in  how  many  unremembered 
nations'  literatures  this  has  been  the  Castalian  Foun 
tain  ?  or  what  nymphs  presided  over  it  in  the  Golden 
Age  ?  It  is  a  gem  of  the  first  water  which  Concord  wears 
in  her  coronet. 

Yet  perchance  the  first  who  came  to  this  well  have 
left  some  trace  of  their  footsteps.  I  have  been  surprised 
to  detect  encircling  the  pond,  even  where  a  thick  wood 
has  just  been  cut  down  on  the  shore,  a  narrow  shelf-like 
path  in  the  steep  hillside,  alternately  rising  and  falling, 


200  WALDEN 

approaching  and  receding  from  the  water's  edge,  as  old 
probably  as  the  race  of  man  here,  worn  by  the  feet  of 
aboriginal  hunters,  and  still  from  time  to  time  unwit 
tingly  trodden  by  the  present  occupants  of  the  land. 
This  is  particularly  distinct  to  one  standing  on  the 
middle  of  the  pond  in  winter,  just  after  a  light  snow 
has  fallen,  appearing  as  a  clear  undulating  white  line, 
unobscured  by  weeds  and  twigs,  and  very  obvious  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  off  in  many  places  where  in  summer 
it  is  hardly  distinguishable  close  at  hand.  The  snow 
reprints  it,  as  it  were,  in  clear  white  type  alto-relievo. 
The  ornamented  grounds  of  villas  which  will  one  day 
be  built  here  may  still  preserve  some  trace  of  this. 

The  pond  rises  and  falls,  but  whether  regularly  or 
not,  and  within  what  period,  nobody  knows,  though,  as 
usual,  many  pretend  to  know.  It  is  commonly  higher 
in  the  winter  and  lower  in  the  summer,  though  not  cor 
responding  to  the  general  wet  and  dryness.  I  can  re 
member  when  it  was  a  foot  or  two  lower,  and  also  when 
it  was  at  least  five  feet  higher,  than  when  I  lived  by  it. 
There  is  a  narrow  sand-bar  running  into  it,  with  very 
deep  water  on  one  side,  on  which  I  helped  boil  a  kettle 
of  chowder,  some  six  rods  from  the  main  shore,  about 
the  year  1824,  which  it  has  not  been  possible  to  do  for 
twenty-five  years;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  my  friends 
used  to  listen  with  incredulity  when  I  told  them,  that 
a  few  years  later  I  was  accustomed  to  fish  from  a  boat 
in  a  secluded  cove  in  the  woods,  fifteen  rods  from  the 
only  shore  they  knew,  which  place  was  long  since  con 
verted  into  a  meadow.  But  the  pond  has  risen  steadily 
for  two  years,  and  now,  in  the  summer  of  '52,  is  just 


THE   PONDS  201 

five  feet  higher  than  when  I  lived  there,  or  as  high  as  it 
was  thirty  years  ago,  and  fishing  goes  on  again  in  the 
meadow.  This  makes  a  difference  of  level,  at  the  out 
side,  of  six  or  seven  feet;  and  yet  the  water  shed  by  the 
surrounding  hills  is  insignificant  in  amount,  and  this 
overflow  must  be  referred  to  causes  which  affect  the 
deep  springs.  This  same  summer  the  pond  has  begun 
to  fall  again.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  fluctuation, 
whether  periodical  or  not,  appears  thus  to  require  many 
years  for  its  accomplishment.  I  have  observed  one  rise 
and  a  part  of  two  falls,  and  I  expect  that  a  dozen  or 
fifteen  years  hence  the  water  will  again  be  as  low  as  I 
have  ever  known  it.  Flint's  Pond,  a  mile  eastward, 
allowing  for  the  disturbance  occasioned  by  its  inlets  and 
outlets,  and  the  smaller  intermediate  ponds  also,  sym 
pathize  with  Walden,  and  recently  attained  their  great 
est  height  at  the  same  time  with  the  latter.  The  same 
is  true,  as  far  as  my  observation  goes,  of  White  Pond. 

This  rise  and  fall  of  Walden  at  long  intervals  serves 
this  use  at  least ;  the  water  standing  at  this  great  height 
for  a  year  or  more,  though  it  makes  it  difficult  to  walk 
round  it,  kills  the  shrubs  and  trees  which  have  sprung 
up  about  its  edge  since  the  last  rise,  —  pitch  pines, 
birches,  alders,  aspens,  and  others,  —  and,  falling  again, 
leaves  an  unobstructed  shore;  for,  unlike  many  ponds 
and  all  waters  which  are  subject  to  a  daily  tide,  its  shore 
is  cleanest  when  the  water  is  lowest.  On  the  side  of  the 
pond  next  my  house  a  row  of  pitch  pines,  fifteen  feet 
high,  has  been  killed  and  tipped  over  as  if  by  a  lever, 
and  thus  a  stop  put  to  their  encroachments;  and  their 
size  indicates  how  many  years  have  elapsed  since  the 


202  WALDEN 

last  rise  to  this  height.  By  this  fluctuation  the  pond 
asserts  its  title  to  a  shore,  and  thus  the  shore  is  shorn, 
and  the  trees  cannot  hold  it  by  right  of  possession. 
These  are  the  lips  of  the  lake,  on  which  no  beard  grows. 
It  licks  its  chaps  from  time  to  time.  When  the  water 
is  at  its  height,  the  alders,  willows,  and  maples  send 
forth  a  mass  of  fibrous  red  roots  several  feet  long  from 
all  sides  of  their  stems  in  the  water,  and  to  the  height 
of  three  or  four  feet  from  the  ground,  in  the  effort  to 
maintain  themselves ;  and  I  have  known  the  high  blue 
berry  bushes  about  the  shore,  which  commonly  produce 
no  fruit,  bear  an  abundant  crop  under  these  circum 
stances. 

Some  have  been  puzzled  to  tell  how  the  shore  became 
so  regularly  paved.  My  townsmen  have  all  heard  the 
tradition  —  the  oldest  people  tell  me  that  they  heard  it 
in  their  youth  —  that  anciently  the  Indians  were  holding 
a  pow-wow  upon  a  hill  here,  which  rose  as  high  into  the 
heavens  as  the  pond  now  sinks  deep  into  the  earth,  and 
they  used  much  profanity,  as  the  story  goes,  though  this 
vice  is  one  of  which  the  Indians  were  never  guilty,  and 
while  they  were  thus  engaged  the  hill  shook  and  sud 
denly  sank,  and  only  one  old  squaw,  named  Walden, 
escaped,  and  from  her  the  pond  was  named.  It  has  been 
conjectured  that  when  the  hill  shook  these  stones  rolled 
down  its  side  and  became  the  present  shore.  It  is  very 
certain,  at  any  rate,  that  once  there  was  no  pond  here, 
and  now  there  is  one;  and  this  Indian  fable  does  not 
in  any  respect  conflict  with  the  account  of  that  ancient 
settler  whom  I  have  mentioned,  who  remembers  so  well 
when  he  first  came  here  with  his  divining-rod,  saw  a 


THE   PONDS  203 

thin  vapor  rising  from  the  sward,  and  the  nazel  pointed 
steadily  downward,  and  he  concluded  to  fiig  a  well  here. 
As  for  the  stones,  many  still  think  that  thoy  are  hardly  to 
be  accounted  for  by  the  action  of  the  waves  on  these 
hills;  but  I  observe  that  the  surrounding  hills  are  re 
markably  full  of  the  same  kind  of  stones,  so  that  they 
have  been  obliged  to  pile  them  up  in  walls  on  both  sides 
of  the  railroad  cut  nearest  the  pond;  and,  moreover, 
there  are  most  stones  where  the  shore  is  most  abrupt; 
so  that,  unfortunately,  it  is  no  longer  a  mystery  to  me.  I 
detect  the  paver.  If  the  name  was  not  derived  from  that 
of  some  English  locality,  —  Saffron  Walden,  for  in 
stance,  —  one  might  suppose  that  it  was  called  originally 
Walled-in  Pond. 

The  pond  was  my  well  ready  dug.  For  four  months 
in  the  year  its  water  is  as  cold  as  it  is  pure  at  all  times ; 
and  I  think  that  it  is  then  as  good  as  any,  if  not  the  best, 
in  the  town.  In  the  winter,  all  water  which  is  exposed 
to  the  air  is  colder  than  springs  and  wells  which  are 
protected  from  it.  The  temperature  of  the  pond  water 
which  had  stood  in  the  room  where  I  sat  from  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  till  noon  the  next  day,  the  sixth 
of  March,  1846,  the  thermometer  having  been  up  to 
65°  or  70°  some  of  the  time,  owing  partly  to  the  sun  on 
the  roof,  was  42°,  or  one  degree  colder  than  the  water  of 
one  of  the  coldest  wells  in  the  village  just  drawn.  The 
temperature  of  the  Boiling  Spring  the  same  day  was 
45°,  or  the  warmest  of  any  water  tried,  though  it  is  the 
coldest  that  I  know  of  in  summer,  when,  beside,  shallow 
and  stagnant  surface  water  is  not  mingled  with  it.  More 
over,  in  summer,  Walden  never  becomes  so  warm  as 


204  WALDEN 

most  water  w  uch  is  exposed  to  the  sun,  on  account  of  its 
depth.  In  the  warmest  weather  I  usually  placed  a  pail 
ful  in  my  cellar,  where  it  became  cool  in  the  night,  and 
remained  so  during  the  day;  though  I  also  resorted  to 
a  spring  in  the  neighborhood.  It  was  as  good  when  a 
week  old  as  the  day  it  was  dipped,  and  had  no  taste  of 
the  pump.  Whoever  camps  for  a  week  in  summer  by 
the  shore  of  a  pond,  needs  only  bury  a  pail  of  water  a 
few  feet  deep  in  the  shade  of  his  camp  to  be  independent 
of  the  luxury  of  ice. 

There  have  been  caught  in  Walden  pickerel,  one 
weighing  seven  pounds,  —  to  say  nothing  of  another 
which  carried  off  a  reel  with  great  velocity,  which  the 
fisherman  safely  set  down  at  eight  pounds  because  he 
did  not  see  him,  —  perch  and  pouts,  some  of  each 
weighing  over  two  pounds,  shiners,  chivins  or  roach 
(Leuciscus  pulchellus) ,  a  very  few  breams,  and  a  couple 
of  eels,  one  weighing  four  pounds,  —  I  am  thus  particular 
because  the  weight  of  a  fish  is  commonly  its  only  title  to 
fame,  and  these  are  the  only  eels  I  have  heard  of  here ; 
—  also,  I  have  a  faint  recollection  of  a  little  fish  some 
five  inches  long,  with  silvery  sides  and  a  greenish  back, 
somewhat  dace-like  in  its  character,  which  I  mention 
here  chiefly  to  link  my  facts  to  fable.  Nevertheless, 
this  pond  is  not  very  fertile  in  fish.  Its  pickerel,  though 
not  abundant,  are  its  chief  boast.  I  have  seen  at  one 
time  lying  on  the  ice  pickerel  of  at  least  three  different 
kinds:  a  long  and  shallow  one,  steel-colored,  most  like 
those  caught  in  the  river;  a  bright  golden  kind,  with 
greenish  reflections  and  remarkably  deep,  which  is  the 
most  common  here;  and  another,  golden-colored,  and 


THE   PONDS  205 

shaped  like  the  last,  but  peppered  on  the  sides  with 
small  dark  brown  or  black  spots,  intermixed  with  a 
few  faint  blood-red  ones,  very  much  like  a  trout.  The 
specific  name  reticulatus  would  not  apply  to  this;  it 
jhould  be  guttatus  rather.  These  are  all  very  firm  fish, 
and  weigh  more  than  their  size  promises.  The  shiners, 
pouts,  and  perch  also,  and  indeed  all  the  fishes  which 
inhabit  this  pond,  are  much  cleaner,  handsomer,  and 
firmer-fleshed  than  those  in  the  river  and  most  other 
ponds,  as  the  water  is  purer,  and  they  can  easily  be  dis 
tinguished  from  them.  Probably  many  ichthyologists 
would  make  new  varieties  of  some  of  them.  There  are 
also  a  clean  race  of  frogs  and  tortoises,  and  a  few  mus 
sels  in  it ;  muskrats  and  minks  leave  their  traces  about 
it,  and  occasionally  a  travelling  mud-turtle  visits  it. 
Sometimes,  when  I  pushed  off  my  boat  in  the  morning, 
I  disturbed  a  great  mud-turtle  which  had  secreted  him 
self  under  the  boat  in  the  night.  Ducks  and  geese 
frequent  it  in  the  spring  and  fall,  the  white-bellied  swal 
lows  (Hirundo  bicolor)  skim  over  it,  and  the  peetweets 
(Totanus  macularius)  "teeter"  along  its  stony  shores  all 
summer.  I  have  sometimes  disturbed  a  fish  hawk  sitting 
on  a  white  pine  over  the  water;  but  I  doubt  if  it  is  ever 
profaned  by  the  wing  of  a  gull,  like  Fair  Haven.  At 
most,  it  tolerates  one  annual  loon.  These  are  all  the 
animals  of  consequence  which  frequent  it  now. 

You  may  see  from  a  boat,  in  calm  weather,  near  the 
sandy  eastern  shore,  where  the  water  is  eight  or  ten 
feet  deep,  and  also  in  some  other  parts  of  the  pond, 
some  circular  heaps  half  a  dozen  feet  in  diameter  by  a 
foot  in  height,  consisting  of  small  stones  less  than  a 


*06  WALDEN 

hen's  egg  in  size,  where  all  around  is  bare  sand.  At 
first  you  wonder  if  the  Indians  could  have  formed  them 
on  the  ice  for  any  purpose,  and  so,  when  the  ice  melted, 
they  sank  to  the  bottom;  but  they  are  too  regular  and 
some  of  them  plainly  too  fresh  for  that.  They  are  similar 
to  those  found  in  rivers ;  but  as  there  are  no  suckers  nor 
lampreys  here,  I  know  not  by  what  fish  they  could  be 
made.  Perhaps  they  are  the  nests  of  the  chivin.  These 
lend  a  pleasing  mystery  to  the  bottom. 

The  shore  is  irregular  enough  not  to  be  monotonous. 
I  have  in  my  mind's  eye  the  western,  indented  with  deep 
bays,  the  bolder  northern,  and  the  beautifully  scalloped 
southern  shore,  where  successive  capes  overlap  each 
other  and  suggest  unexplored  coves  between.  The 
forest  has  never  so  good  a  setting,  nor  is  so  distinctly 
beautiful,  as  when  seen  from  the  middle  of  a  small  lake 
amid  hills  which  rise  from  the  water's  edge;  for  the 
water  in  which  it  is  reflected  not  only  makes  the  best 
foreground  in  such  a  case,  but,  with  its  winding  shore, 
the  most  natural  and  agreeable  boundary  to  it.  There 
is  no  rawness  nor  imperfection  in  its  edge  there,  as 
where  the  axe  has  cleared  a  part,  or  a  cultivated  field 
abuts  on  it.  The  trees  have  ample  room  to  expand  on 
the  water  side,  and  each  sends  forth  its  most  vigorous 
branch  in  that  direction.  There  Nature  has  woven  a 
natural  selvage,  and  the  eye  rises  by  just  gradations 
from  the  low  shrubs  of  the  shore  to  the  highest  trees. 
There  are  few  traces  of  man's  hand  to  be  seen.  The 
water  laves  the  shore  as  it  did  a  thousand  years  ago. 

A  lake  is  the  landscape's  most  beautiful  and  expressive 
feature.  It  is  earth's  eye;  looking  into  which  the  be- 


THE   PONDS  207 

holder  measures  the  depth  of  his  own  nature.  The 
fluviatile  trees  next  the  shore  are  the  slender  eyelashes 
which  fringe  it,  and  the  wooded  hills  and  cliffs  around 
are  its  overhanging  brows. 

Standing  on  the  smooth  sandy  beach  at  the  east  end 
of  the  pond,  in  a  calm  September  afternoon,  when  a 
slight  haze  makes  the  opposite  shore-line  indistinct,  I 
have  seen  whence  came  the  expression,  "  the  glassy  sur 
face  of  a  lake."  When  you  invert  your  head,  it  looks 
like  a  thread  of  finest  gossamer  stretched  across  the 
valley,  and  gleaming  against  the  distant  pine  woods, 
separating  one  stratum  of  the  atmosphere  from  another. 
You  would  think  that  you  could  walk  dry  under  it  to  the 
opposite  hills,  and  that  the  swallows  which  skim  over 
might  perch  on  it.  Indeed,  they  sometimes  dive  below 
the  line,  as  it  were  by  mistake,  and  are  undeceived.  As 
you  look  over  the  pond  westward  you  are  obliged  to 
employ  both  your  hands  to  defend  your  eyes  against  the 
reflected  as  well  as  the  true  sun,  for  they  are  equally 
bright;  and  if,  between  the  two,  you  survey  its  surface 
critically,  it  is  literally  as  smooth  as  glass,  except  where 
the  skater  insects,  at  equal  intervals  scattered  over  its 
whole  extent,  by  their  motions  in  the  sun  produce  the 
finest  imaginable  sparkle  on  it,  or,  perchance,  a  duck 
plumes  itself,  or,  as  I  have  said,  a  swallow  skims  so  low 
as  to  touch  it.  It  may  be  that  in  the  distance  a  fish  de 
scribes  an  arc  of  three  or  four  feet  in  the  air,  and  there 
is  one  bright  flash  where  it  emerges,  and  another  where 
it  strikes  the  water;  sometimes  the  whole  silvery  arc  is 
revealed;  or  here  and  there,  perhaps,  is  a  thistle-down 
floating  on  its  surface,  which  the  fishes  dart  at  and  so 


208  WALDEN 

dimple  it  again.  It  is  like  molten  glass  cooled  but  not 
congealed,  and  the  few  motes  in  it  are  pure  and  beautiful 
like  the  imperfections  in  glass.  You  may  often  detect  a 
yet  smoother  and  darker  water,  separated  from  the  rest 
as  if  by  an  invisible  cobweb,  boom  of  the  water  nymphs, 
resting  on  it.  From  a  hilltop  you  can  see  a  fish  leap  in 
almost  any  part;  for  not  a  pickerel  or  shiner  picks  an 
insect  from  this  smooth  surface  but  it  manifestly  dis 
turbs  the  equilibrium  of  the  whole  lake.  It  is  wonderful 
with  what  elaborateness  this  simple  fact  is  advertised, 
—  this  piscine  murder  will  out,  —  and  from  my  distant 
perch  I  distinguish  the  circling  undulations  when  they 
are  half  a  dozen  rods  in  diameter.  You  can  even  detect 
a  water-bug  (Gyrlnus)  ceaselessly  progressing  over  the 
smooth  surface  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off ;  for  they  furrow 
the  water  slightly,  making  a  conspicuous  ripple  bounded 
by  two  diverging  lines,  but  the  skaters  glide  over  it 
without  rippling  it  perceptibly.  When  the  surface  is 
considerably  agitated  there  are  no  skaters  nor  water- 
bugs  on  it,  but  apparently,  in  calm  days,  they  leave  their 
havens  and  adventurously  glide  forth  from  the  shore  by 
short  impulses  till  they  completely  cover  it.  It  is  a 
soothing  employment,  on  one  of  those  fine  days  in  the 
fall  when  all  the  warmth  of  the  sun  is  fully  appreciated, 
to  sit  on  a  stump  on  such  a  height  as  this,  overlooking 
the  pond,  and  study  the  dimpling  circles  which  are 
incessantly  inscribed  on  its  otherwise  invisible  surface 
amid  the  reflected  skies  and  trees.  Over  this  great  ex 
panse  there  is  no  disturbance  but  it  is  thus  at  once  gently 
smoothed  away  and  assuaged,  as,  when  a  vase  of  water 
is  jarred,  the  trembling  circles  seek  the  shore  and  all  is 


THE   PONDS  209 

smooth  again.  Not  a  fish  can  leap  or  an  insect  fall  on 
the  pond  but  it  is  thus  reported  in  circling  dimples,  in 
lines  of  beauty,  as  it  were  the  constant  welling  up  of 
its  fountain,  the  gentle  pulsing  of  its  life,  the  heaving  of 
its  breast.  The  thrills  of  joy  and  thrills  of  pain  are 
undistinguishable.  How  peaceful  the  phenomena  of  the 
lake !  Again  the  works  of  man  shine  as  in  the  spring. 
Ay,  every  leaf  and  twig  and  stone  and  cobweb  sparkles 
now  at  mid-afternoon  as  when  covered  with  dew  in  a 
spring  morning.  Every  motion  of  an  oar  or  an  insect 
produces  a  flash  of  light;  and  if  an  oar  falls,  how  sweet 
the  echo ! 

In  such  a  day,  in  September  or  October,  Walden  is 
a  perfect  forest  mirror,  set  round  with  stones  as  precious 
to  my  eye  as  if  fewer  or  rarer.  Nothing  so  fair,  so  pure, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  large,  as  a  lake,  perchance, 
lies  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  Sky  water.  It  needs 
no  fence.  Nations  come  and  go  without  defiling  it.  It  is 
a  mirror  which  no  stone  can  crack,  whose  quicksilver 
will  never  wear  off,  whose  gilding  Nature  continually 
repairs;  no  storms,  no  dust,  can  dim  its  surface  ever 
fresh ;  —  a  mirror  in  which  all  impurity  presented  to 
it  sinks,  swept  and  dusted  by  the  sun's  hazy  brush,  — 
this  the  light  dust-cloth,  —  which  retains  no  breath 
that  is  breathed  on  it,  but  sends  its  own  to  float  as 
clouds  high  above  its  surface,  and  be  reflected  "in  its 
bosom  still. 

A  field  of  water  betrays  the  spirit  that  is  in  the  air. 
It  is  continually  receiving  new  life  and  motion  from 
above.  It  is  intermediate  in  its  nature  between  land  and 
sky.  On  land  only  the  grass  and  trees  wave,  but  the 


210  WALDEN 

water  itself  is  rippled  by  the  wind.  I  see  where  the 
breeze  dashes  across  it  by  the  streaks  or  flakes  of  light. 
It  is  remarkable  that  we  can  look  down  on  its  surface. 
We  shall,  perhaps,  look  down  thus  on  the  surface  of  ail 
at  length,  and  mark  where  a  still  subtler  spirit  sweeps 
over  it. 

The  skaters  and  water-bugs  finally  disappear  in  the 
latter  part  of  October,  when  the  severe  frosts  have 
come;  and  then  and  in  November,  usually,  in  a  calm 
day,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  ripple  the  surface. 
One  November  afternoon,  in  the  calm  at  the  end  of  a 
rain-storm  of  several  days'  duration,  when  the  sky  was 
still  completely  overcast  and  the  air  was  full  of  mist,  I 
observed  that  the  pond  was  remarkably  smooth,  so 
that  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish  its  surface;  though 
it  no  longer  reflected  the  bright  tints  of  October,  but 
the  sombre  November  colors  of  the  surrounding  hills. 
Though  I  passed  over  it  as  gently  as  possible,  the  slight 
undulations  produced  by  my  boat  extended  almost  as 
far  as  I  could  see,  and  gave  a  ribbed  appearance  to  the 
reflections.  But,  as  I  was  looking  over  the  surface,  I  saw 
here  and  there  at  a  distance  a  faint  glimmer,  as  if  some 
skater  insects  which  had  escaped  the  frosts  might  be 
collected  there,  or,  perchance,  the  surface,  being  so 
smooth,  betrayed  where  a  spring  welled  up  from  the 
bottom.  Paddling  gently  to  one  of  these  places,  I  was 
surprised  to  find  myself  surrounded  by  myriads  of  small 
perch,  about  five  inches  long,  of  a  rich  bronze  color  in 
the  green  water,  sporting  there,  and  constantly  rising  to 
the  surface  and  dimpling  it,  sometimes  leaving  bubbles 
on  it.  In  such  transparent  and  seemingly  bottomless 


THE  PONDS  211 

water,  reflecting  the  clouds,  I  seemed  to  be  floating 
through  the  air  as  in  a  balloon,  and  their  swimming 
impressed  me  as  a  kind  of  flight  or  hovering,  as  if  they 
were  a  compact  flock  of  birds  passing  just  beneath  my 
level  on  the  right  or  left,  their  fins,  like  sails,  set  all 
around  them.  There  were  many  such  schools  in  the 
pond,  apparently  improving  the  short  season  before 
winter  would  draw  an  icy  shutter  over  their  broad  sky 
light,  sometimes  giving  to  the  surface  an  appearance  as 
if  a  slight  breeze  struck  it,  or  a  few  rain-drops  fell  there. 
When  I  approached  carelessly  and  alarmed  them,  they 
made  a  sudden  plash  and  rippling  with  their  tails,  as  if 
one  had  struck  the  water  with  a  brushy  bough,  and  in 
stantly  took  refuge  in  the  depths.  At  length  the  wind 
rose,  the  mist  increased,  and  the  waves  began  to  run, 
and  the  perch  leaped  much  higher  than  before,  half  out 
of  water,  a  hundred  black  points,  three  inches  long,  at 
once  above  the  surface.  Even  as  late  as  the  fifth  of 
December,  one  year,  I  saw  some  dimples  on  the  surface, 
and  thinking  it  was  going  to  rain  hard  immediately, 
the  air  being  full  of  mist,  I  made  haste  to  take  my  place 
at  the  oars  and  row  homeward ;  already  the  rain  seemed 
rapidly  increasing,  though  I  felt  none  on  my  cheek,  and 
I  anticipated  a  thorough  soaking.  But  suddenly  the 
dimples  ceased,  for  they  were  produced  by  the  perch, 
which  the  noise  of  my  oars  had  scared  into  the  depths, 
and  I  saw  their  schools  dimly  disappearing ;  so  I  spent 
a  dry  afternoon  after  all. 

An  old  man  who  used  to  frequent  this  pond  nearly 
sixty  years  ago,  when  it  was  dark  with  surrounding 
forests,  tells  me  that  in  those  days  he  sometimes  saw  it 


WALDEN 

all  alive  with  ducks  and  other  water-fowl,  and  that  there 
were  many  eagles  about  it.  He  came  here  a-fishing,  and 
used  an  old  log  canoe  which  he  found  on  the  shore.  It 
was  made  of  two  white  pine  logs  dug  out  and  pinned 
together,  and  was  cut  off  square  at  the  ends.  It  was 
very  clumsy,  but  lasted  a  great  many  years  before  it 
became  water-logged  and  perhaps  sank  to  the  bottom. 
He  did  not  know  whose  it  was ;  it  belonged  to  the  pond. 
He  used  to  make  a  cable  for  his  anchor  of  strips  of 
hickory  bark  tied  together.  An  old  man,  a  potter,  who 
lived  by  the  pond  before  the  Revolution,  told  him  once 
that  there  was  an  iron  chest  at  the  bottom,  and  that  he 
had  seen  it.  Sometimes  it  would  come  floating  up  to  the 
shore;  but  when  you  went  toward  it,  it  would  go  back 
into  deep  water  and  disappear.  I  was  pleased  to  hear 
of  the  old  log  canoe,  which  took  the  place  of  an  Indian 
one  of  the  same  material  but  more  graceful  construc 
tion,  which  perchance  had  first  been  a  tree  on  the  bank, 
and  then,  as  it  were,  fell  into  the  water,  to  float  there 
for  a  generation,  the  most  proper  vessel  for  the  lake. 
I  remember  that  when  I  first  looked  into  these  depths 
there  were  many  large  trunks  to  be  seen  indistinctly 
lying  on  the  bottom,  which  had  either  been  blown  over 
formerly,  or  left  on  the  ice  at  the  last  cutting,  when 
wood  was  cheaper;  but  now  they  have  mostly  disap 
peared. 

When  I  first  paddled  a  boat  on  Walden,  it  was  com 
pletely  surrounded  by  thick  and  lofty  pine  and  oak 
woods,  and  in  some  of  its  coves  grape-vines  had  run 
over  the  trees  next  the  water  and  formed  bowers  under 
which  a  boat  could  pass.  The  hills  which  form  its  shores 


THE  PONDS  213 

are  so  steep,  and  the  woods  on  them  were  then  so  high, 
that,  as  you  looked  down  from  the  west  end,  it  had  the 
appearance  of  an  amphitheatre  for  some  kind  of  sylvan 
spectacle.  I  have  spent  many  an  hour,  when  I  was 
younger,  floating  over  its  surface  as  the  zephyr  willed, 
having  paddled  my  boat  to  the  middle,  and  lying  on  my 
back  across  the  seats,  in  a  summer  forenoon,  dreaming 
awake,  until  I  was  aroused  by  the  boat  touching  the 
sand,  and  I  arose  to  see  what  shore  my  fates  had  im 
pelled  me  to;  days  when  idleness  was  the  most  attrac 
tive  and  productive  industry.  Many  a  forenoon  have  I 
stolen  away,  preferring  to  spend  thus  the  most  valued 
part  of  the  day;  for  I  was  rich,  if  not  in  money,  in  sunny 
hours  and  summer  days,  and  spent  them  lavishly;  nor 
do  I  regret  that  I  did  not  waste  more  of  them  in  the 
workshop  or  the  teacher's  desk.  But  since  I  left  those 
shores  the  woodchoppers  have  still  further  laid  them 
waste,  and  now  for  many  a  year  there  will  be  no  more 
rambling  through  the  aisles  of  the  wood,  with  occasional 
vistas  through  which  you  see  the  water.  My  Muse  may 
be  excused  if  she  is  silent  henceforth.  How  can  you 
expect  the  birds  to  sing  when  their  groves  are  cut 
down? 

Now  the  trunks  of  trees  on  the  bottom,  and  the  old 
log  canoe,  and  the  dark  surrounding  woods,  are  gone,  and 
the  villagers,  who  scarcely  know  where  it  lies,  instead  of 
going  to  the  pond  to  bathe  or  drink,  are  thinking  to 
bring  its  water,  which  should  be  as  sacred  as  the  Ganges 
at  least,  to  the  village  in  a  pipe,  to  wash  their  dishes 
with !  —  to  earn  their  Walden  by  the  turning  of  a  cock 
or  drawing  of  a  plug !  That  devilish  Iron  Horse,  whose 


214  WALDEN 

ear-rending  neigh  is  heard  throughout  the  town,  has 
muddied  the  Boiling  Spring  with  his  foot,  and  he  it  is 
that  has  browsed  off  all  the  woods  on  Walden  shore, 
that  Trojan  horse,  with  a  thousand  men  in  his  belly, 
introduced  by  mercenary  Greeks!  Where  is  the  coun 
try's  champion,  the  Moore  of  Moore  Hall,  to  meet  him 
at  the  Deep  Cut  and  thrust  an  avenging  lance  between 
the  ribs  of  the  bloated  pest  ? 

Nevertheless,  of  all  the  characters  I  have  known, 
perhaps  Walden  wears  best,  and  best  preserves  its 
purity.  Many  men  have  been  likened  to  it,  but  few  de 
serve  that  honor.  Though  the  woodchoppers  have  laid 
bare  first  this  shore  and  then  that,  and  the  Irish  have 
built  their  sties  by  it,  and  the  railroad  has  infringed  on 
its  border,  and  the  ice-men  have  skimmed  it  once,  it  is 
itself  unchanged,  the  same  water  which  my  youthful 
eyes  fell  on;  all  the  change  is  in  me.  It  has  riot  acquired 
one  permanent  wrinkle  after  all  its  ripples.  It  is  peren 
nially  young,  and  I  may  stand  and  see  a  swallow  dip 
apparently  to  pick  an  insect  from  its  surface  as  of  yore. 
It  struck  me  again  to-night,  as  if  I  had  not  seen  it  almost 
daily  for  more  than  twenty  years,  —  Why,  here  is  Wal 
den,  the  same  woodland  lake  that  I  discovered  so  many 
years  ago;  where  a  forest  was  cut  down  last  winter 
another  is  springing  up  by  its  shore  as  lustily  as  ever; 
the  same  thought  is  welling  up  to  its  surface  that  was 
then;  it  is  the  same  liquid  joy  and  happiness  to  itself 
and  its  Maker,  ay,  and  it  may  be  to  me.  It  is  the  work 
of  a  brave  man  surely,  in  whom  there  was  no  guile !  He 
rounded  this  water  with  his  hand,  deepened  and  clarified 
it  in  his  thought,  and  in  his  will  bequeathed  it  to  Con- 


THE  PONDS  215 

cord.   I  see  by  its  face  that  it  is  visited  by  the  same  re 
flection;  and  I  can  almost  say,  Walden,  is  it  you  ? 

It  is  no  dream  of  mine, 

To  ornament  a  line; 

I  cannot  come  nearer  to  God  and  Heaven 

Than  I  live  to  Walden  even. 

I  am  its  stony  shore, 

And  the  breeze  that  passes  o'er; 

In  the  hollow  of  my  hand 

Are  its  water  and  its  sand, 

And  its  deepest  resort 

Lies  high  in  my  thought. 

The  cars  never  pause  to  look  at  it;  yet  I  fancy  that 
the  engineers  and  firemen  and  brakemen,  and  those 
passengers  who  have  a  season  ticket  and  see  it  often, 
are  better  men  for  the  sight.  The  engineer  does  not  for 
get  at  night,  or  his  nature  does  not,  that  he  has  beheld 
this  vision  of  serenity  and  purity  once  at  least  during  the 
day.  Though  seen  but  once,  it  helps  to  wash  out  State 
Street  and  the  engine's  soot.  One  proposes  that  it  be 
called  "God's  Drop." 

I  have  said  that  Walden  has  no  visible  inlet  nor  outlet, 
but  it  is  on  the  one  hand  distantly  and  indirectly  related 
to  Flint's  Pond,  which  is  more  elevated,  by  a  chain  of 
small  ponds  coming  from  that  quarter,  and  on  the  other 
directly  and  manifestly  to  Concord  River,  which  is 
lower,  by  a  similar  chain  of  ponds  through  which  in 
some  other  geological  period  it  may  have  flowed,  and 
by  a  little  digging,  which  God  forbid,  it  can  be  made  to 
flow  thither  again.  If  by  living  thus  reserved  and  austere, 
like  a  hermit  in  the  woods,  so  long,  it  has  acquired  such 


216  WALDEN 

wonderful  purity,  who  would  not  regret  that  the  com 
paratively  impure  waters  of  Flint's  Pond  should  be 
mingled  with  it,  or  itself  should  ever  go  to  waste  its 
sweetness  in  the  ocean  wave? 

Flint's,  or  Sandy  Pond,  in  Lincoln,  our  greatest  lake 
and  inland  sea,  lies  about  a  mile  east  of  Walden.  It  is 
much  larger,  being  said  to  contain  one  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  acres,  and  is  more  fertile  in  fish;  but  it  is 
comparatively  shallow,  and  not  remarkably  pure.  A 
walk  through  the  woods  thither  was  often  my  recrea 
tion.  It  was  worth  the  while,  if  only  to  feel  the  wind 
blow  on  your  cheek  freely,  and  see  the  waves  run,  and 
remember  the  life  of  mariners.  I  went  a-chestnutting 
there  in  the  fall,  on  windy  days,  when  the  nuts  were 
dropping  into  the  water  and  were  washed  to  my  feet; 
and  one  day,  as  I  crept  along  its  sedgy  shore,  the  fresh 
spray  blowing  in  my  face,  I  came  upon  the  mouldering 
wreck  of  a  boat,  the  sides  gone,  and  hardly  more  than 
the  impression  of  its  flat  bottom  left  amid  the  rushes; 
yet  its  model  was  sharply  defined,  as  if  it  were  a  large 
decayed  pad,  with  its  veins.  It  was  as  impressive  a  wreck 
as  one  could  imagine  on  the  seashore,  and  had  as 
good  a  moral.  It  is  by  this  time  mere  vegetable  mould 
and  undistinguishable  pond  shore,  through  which 
rushes  and  flags  have  pushed  up.  I  used  to  admire  the 
ripple  marks  on  the  sandy  bottom,  at  the  north  end  of 
this  pond,  made  firm  and  hard  to  the  feet  of  the  wader 
by  the  pressure  of  the  water,  and  the  rushes  which 
grew  in  Indian  file,  in  waving  lines,  corresponding  to 
these  marks,  rank  behind  rank,  as  if  the  waves  had 


THE   PONDS  217 

planted  them.  There  also  I  have  found,  in  considerable 
quantities,  curious  balls,  composed  apparently  of  fine 
grass  or  roots,  of  pipewort  perhaps,  from  half  an  inch 
to  four  inches  in  diameter,  and  perfectly  spherical.  These 
wash  back  and  forth  in  shallow  water  on  a  sandy  bot 
tom,  and  are  sometimes  cast  on  the  shore.  They  are 
either  solid  grass,  or  have  a  little  sand  in  the  middle.  At 
first  you  would  say  that  they  were  formed  by  the  action 
of  the  waves,  like  a  pebble;  yet  the  smallest  are  made 
of  equally  coarse  materials,  half  an  inch  long,  and  they 
are  produced  only  at  one  season  of  the  year.  Moreover, 
the  waves,  I  suspect,  do  not  so  much  construct  as  wear 
down  a  material  which  has  already  acquired  consistency. 
They  preserve  their  form  when  dry  for  an  indefinite 
period. 

Flint's  Pond !  Such  is  the  poverty  of  our  nomencla 
ture.  What  right  had  the  unclean  and  stupid  farmer, 
whose  farm  abutted  on  this  sky  water,  whose  shores  he 
has  ruthlessly  laid  bare,  to  give  his  name  to  it  ?  Some 
skin-flint,  who  loved  better  the  reflecting  surface  of  a  dol 
lar,  or  a  bright  cent,  in  which  he  could  see  his  own  brazen 
face;  who  regarded  even  the  wild  ducks  which  settled 
in  it  as  trespassers;  his  fingers  grown  into  crooked  and 
horny  talons  from  the  long  habit  of  grasping  harpy-like; 
—  so  it  is  not  named  for  me.  I  go  not  there  to  see  him 
nor  to  hear  of  him ;  who  never  saw  it,  who  never  bathed 
in  it,  who  never  loved  it,  who  never  protected  it,  who 
never  spoke  a  good  word  for  it,  nor  thanked  God  that 
He  had  made  it.  Rather  let  it  be  named  from  the  fishes 
that  swim  in  it,  the  wild  fowl  or  quadrupeds  which  fre 
quent  it,  the  wild  flowers  which  grow  by  its  shores,  or 


218  WALDEN 

some  wild  man  or  child  the  thread  of  whose  history  is  in 
terwoven  with  its  own;  not  from  him  who  could  show 
no  title  to  it  but  the  deed  which  a  like-minded  neighbor 
or  legislature  gave  him,  —  him  who  thought  only  of  its 
money  value;  whose  presence  perchance  cursed  all  the 
shores ;  who  exhausted  the  land  around  it,  and  would  fain 
have  exhausted  the  waters  within  it ;  who  regretted  only 
that  it  was  not  English  hay  or  cranberry  meadow,  — 
there  was  nothing  to  redeem  it,  forsooth,  in  his  eyes, 
—  and  would  have  drained  and  sold  it  for  the  mud  at 
its  bottom.  It  did  not  turn  his  mill,  and  it  was  no  privi 
lege  to  him  to  behold  it.  I  respect  not  his  labors,  his 
farm  where  everything  has  its  price,  who  would  carry 
the  landscape,  who  would  carry  his  God,  to  market,  if 
he  could  get  anything  for  him ;  who  goes  to  market  for 
his  god  as  it  is ;  on  whose  farm  nothing  grows  free,  whose 
fields  bear  no  crops,  whose  meadows  no  flowers,  whose 
trees  no  fruits,  but  dollars;  who  loves  not  the  beauty  of 
his  fruits,  whose  fruits  are  not  ripe  for  him  till  they  are 
turned  to  dollars.  Givejoaejthe  poverty  that  enjoys  true 
wealth.  Farmers  are  respectable  and  interesting  to  me 
in  proportion  as  they  are  poor,  —  poor  farmers.  A  model 
farm !  where  the  house  stands  like  a  fungus  in  a  muck- 
heap,  chambers  for  men,  horses,  oxen,  and  swine, 
cleansed  and  uncleansed,  all  contiguous  to  one  another! 
Stocked  with  men!  A  great  grease-spot,  redolent  of 
manures  and  buttermilk !  Under  a  high  state  of  cultiva 
tion,  being  manured  with  the  hearts  and  brains  of  men ! 
As  if  you  were  to  raise  your  potatoes  in  the  churchyard ! 
Such  is  a  model  farm. 

No,  no;  if  the  fairest  features  of  the  landscape  are  to 


THE   PONDS  219 

be  named  after  men,  let  them  be  the  noblest  and  worthi 
est  men  alone.  Let  our  lakes  receive  as  true  names  at 
least  as  the  Icarian  Sea,  where  "  still  the  shore  "  a  "  brave 
attempt  resounds." 

Goose  Pond,  of  small  extent,  is  on  my  way  to  Flint's; 
Fair  Haven,  an  expansion  of  Concord  River,  said  to  con 
tain  some  seventy  acres,  is  a  mile  southwest ;  and  White 
Pond,  of  about  forty  acres,  is  a  mile  and  a  half  beyond 
Fair  Haven.  This  is  my  lake  country.  These,  with  Con 
cord  River,  are  my  water  privileges ;  and  night  and  day, 
year  in  year  out,  they  grind  such  grist  as  I  carry  to  them. 

Since  the  wood-cutters,  and  the  railroad,  and  I  my 
self  have  profaned  Walden,  perhaps  the  most  attractive, 
if  not  the  most  beautiful,  of  all  our  lakes,  the  gem  of  the 
woods,  is  White  Pond ;  —  a  poor  name  from  its  common 
ness,  whether  derived  from  the  remarkable  purity  of  its 
waters  or  the  color  of  its  sands.  In  these  as  in  other  re 
spects,  however,  it  is  a  lesser  twin  of  Walden.  They  are 
so  much  alike  that  you  would  say  they  must  be  connected 
under  ground.  It  has  the  same  stony  shore,  and  its 
waters  are  of  the  same  hue.  As  at  Walden,  in  sultry  dog- 
day  weather,  looking  down  through  the  woods  on  some 
of  its  bays  which  are  not  so  deep  but  that  the  reflection 
from  the  bottom  tinges  them,  its  waters  are  of  a  misty 
bluish-green  or  glaucous  color.  Many  years  since  I  used 
to  go  there  to  collect  the  sand  by  cartloads,  to  make 
sandpaper  with,  and  I  have  continued  to  visit  it  ever 
since.  One  who  frequents  it  proposes  to  call  it  Virid 
Lake.  Perhaps  it  might  be  called  Yellow  Pine  Lake, 
from  the  following  circumstance.  About  fifteen  years 


220  WALDEN 

ago  you  could  see  the  top  of  a  pitch  pine,  of  the  kind 
called  yellow  pine  hereabouts,  though  it  is  not  a  distinct 
species,  projecting  above  the  surface  in  deep  water, 
many  rods  from  the  shore.  It  was  even  supposed  by 
some  that  the  pond  had  sunk,  and  this  was  one  of  the 
primitive  forest  that  formerly  stood  there.  I  find  that 
even  so  long  ago  as  1792,  in  a  "Topographical  Descrip 
tion  of  the  Town  of  Concord,"  by  one  of  its  citizens, 
in  the  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So 
ciety,  the  author,  after  speaking  of  Walden  and  White 
Ponds,  adds,  "  In  the  middle  of  the  latter  may  be  seen, 
when  the  water  is  very  low,  a  tree  which  appears  as  if  it 
grew  in  the  place  where  it  now  stands,  although  the  roots 
are  fifty  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  water;  the  top  of 
this  tree  is  broken  off,  and  at  that  place  measures  four 
teen  inches  in  diameter."  In  the  spring  of  '49  I  talked 
with  the  man  who  lives  nearest  the  pond  in  Sudbury, 
who  told  me  that  it  was  he  who  got  out  this  tree  ten  or 
fifteen  years  before.  As  near  as  he  could  remember,  it 
stood  twelve  or  fifteen  rods  from  the  shore,  where  the 
water  was  thirty  or  forty  feet  deep.  It  was  in  the  winter, 
and  he  had  been  getting  out  ice  in  the  forenoon,  and  had 
resolved  that  in  the  afternoon,  with  the  aid  of  his  neigh 
bors,  he  would  take  out  the  old  yellow  pine.  He  sawed  a 
channel  in  the  ice  toward  the  shore,  and  hauled  it  over 
and  along  and  out  on  to  the  ice  with  oxen;  but,  before 
he  had  gone  far  in  his  work,  he  was  surprised  to  find  that 
it  was  wrong  end  upward,  with  the  stumps  of  the  branches 
pointing  down,  and  the  small  end  firmly  fastened  in  the 
sandy  bottom.  It  was  about  a  foot  in  diameter  at  the 
big  end,  and  he  had  expected  to  get  a  good  saw-log,  but 


THE   PONDS  221 

it  was  so  rotten  as  to  be  fit  only  for  fuel,  if  for  that.  He 
had  some  of  it  in  his  shed  then.  There  were  marks  of  an 
axe  and  of  woodpeckers  on  the  butt.  He  thought  that  it 
might  have  been  a  dead  tree  on  the  shore,  but  was  finally 
blown  over  into  the  pond,  and  after  the  top  had  become 
water-logged,  while  the  butt-end  was  still  dry  and  light, 
had  drifted  out  and  sunk  wrong  end  up.  His  father, 
eighty  years  old,  could  not  remember  when  it  was  not 
there.  Several  pretty  large  logs  may  still  be  seen  lying 
on  the  bottom,  where,  owing  to  the  undulation  of  the 
surface,  they  look  like  huge  water  snakes  in  motion. 

This  pond  has  rarely  been  profaned  by  a  boat,  for 
there  is  little  in  it  to  tempt  a  fisherman.  Instead  of  the 
white  lily,  which  requires  mud,  or  the  common  sweet 
flag,  the  blue  flag  (Iris  versicolor)  grows  thinly  in  the 
pure  water,  rising  from  the  stony  bottom  all  around  the 
shore,  where  it  is  visited  by  hummingbirds  in  June ;  and 
the  color  both  of  its  bluish  blades  and  its  flowers  and 
especially  their  reflections,  is  in  singular  harmony  with 
the  glaucous  water. 

White  Pond  and  Walden  are  great  crystals  on  the  sur 
face  of  the  earth,  Lakes  of  Light.  If  they  were  perma 
nently  congealed,  and  small  enough  to  be  clutched,  they 
would,  perchance,  be  carried  off  by  slaves,  like  precious 
stones,  to  adorn  the  heads  of  emperors;  but  being  liquid, 
and  ample,  and  secured  to  us  and  our  successors  forever, 
we  disregard  them,  and  run  after  the  diamond  of  Kohi- 
noor.  They  are  too  pure  to  have  a  market  value;  they 
contain  no  muck.  How  much  more  beautiful  than  our 
lives,  how  much  more  transparent  than  our  characters, 
are  they!  We  never  learned  meanness  of  them.  How 


222  WALDEN 

much  fairer  than  the  pool  before  the  fanner's  door,  in 
which  his  ducks  swim!  Hither  the  clean  wild  ducks 
come.  Nature  has  no  human  inhabitant  who  appreciates 
her.  The  birds  with  their  plumage  and  their  notes  are 
in  harmony  with  the  flowers,  but  what  youth  or  maiden 
conspires  with  the  wild  luxuriant  beauty  of  Nature? 
She  flourishes  most  alone,  far  from  the  towns  where  they 
reside.  Talk  of  heaven!  ye  disgrace  earth. 


X 

BAKER  FARM 

SOMETIMES  I  rambled  to  pine  groves,  standing  like 
temples,  or  like  fleets  at  sea,  full-rigged,  with  wavy 
boughs,  and  rippling  with  light,  so  soft  and  green  and 
shady  that  the  Druids  would  have  forsaken  their  oaks 
to  worship  in  them;  or  to  the  cedar  wood  beyond  Flint's 
Pond,  where  the  trees,  covered  with  hoary  blue  berries, 
spiring  higher  and  higher,  are  fit  to  stand  before  Valhalla, 
and  the  creeping  juniper  covers  the  ground  with  wreaths 
full  of  fruit;  or  to  swamps  where  the  usnea  lichen  hangs 
in  festoons  from  the  white  spruce  trees,  and  toadstools, 
round  tables  of  the  swamp  gods,  cover  the  ground,  and 
more  beautiful  fungi  adorn  the  stumps,  like  butterflies 
or  shells,  vegetable  winkles ;  where  the  swamp-pink  and 
dogwood  grow,  the  red  alder  berry  glows  like  eyes^  of 
imps,  the  waxwork  grooves  and  crushes  the  hardest 
woods  in  its  folds,  and  the  wild  holly  berries  make  the 
beholder  forget  his  home  with  their  beauty,  and  he  is 
dazzled  and  tempted  by  nameless  other  wild  forbidden 
fruits,  too  fair  for  mortal  taste.  Instead  of  calling  on 
some  scholar,  I  paid  many  a  visit  to  particular  trees,  of 
kinds  which  are  rare  in  this  neighborhood,  standing  far 
away  in  the  middle  of  some  pasture,  or  in  the  depths  of 
a  wood  or  swamp,  or  on  a  hilltop;  such  as  the  black 
birch,  of  which  we  have  some  handsome  specimens  two 


224  WALDEN 

feet  in  diameter;  its  cousin,  the  yellow  birch,  with  its 
loose  golden  vest,  perfumed  like  the  first;  the  beech, 
which  has  so  neat  a  bole  and  beautifully  lichen-painted, 
perfect  in  all  its  details,  of  which,  excepting  scattered 
specimens,  I  know  but  one  small  grove  of  sizable  trees 
left  in  the  township,  supposed  by  some  to  have  been 
planted  by  the  pigeons  that  were  once  baited  with  beech 
nuts  near  by;  it  is  worth  the  while  to  see  the  silver  grain 
sparkle  when  you  split  this  wood;  the  bass;  the  horn 
beam;  the  Celtis  occidentalis,  or  false  elm,  of  which  we 
have  but  one  well-grown;  some  taller  mast  of  a  pine,  a 
shingle  tree,  or  a  more  perfect  hemlock  than  usual,  stand 
ing  like  a  pagoda  in  the  midst  of  the  woods ;  and  many 
others  I  could  mention.  These  were  the  shrines  I  visited 
both  summer  and  winter. 

Once  it  chanced  that  I  stood  in  the  very  abutment  of 
a  rainbow's  arch,  which  filled  the  lower  stratum  of  the 
atmosphere,  tinging  the  grass  and  leaves  around,  and 
dazzling  me  as  if  I  looked  through  colored  crystal.  It 
was  a  lake  of  rainbow  light,  in  which,  for  a  short  while, 
I  lived  like  a  dolphin.  If  it  had  lasted  longer  it  might 
have  tinged  my  employments  and  life.  As  I  walked  on 
the  railroad  causeway,  I  used  to  wonder  at  the  halo  of 
light  around  my  shadow,  and  would  fain  fancy  myself 
one  of  the  elect.  One  who  visited  me  declared  that  the 
shadows  of  some  Irishmen  before  him  had  no  halo  about 
them,  that  it  was  only  natives  that  were  so  distinguished. 
Benvenuto  Cellini  tells  us  in  his  memoirs,  that,  after  a 
certain  terrible  dream  or  vision  which  he  had  during  his 
confinement  in  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo  a  resplendent 
light  appeared  over  the  shadow  of  his  head  at  morning 


BAKER  FARM  225 

and  evening,  whether  he  was  in  Italy  or  France,  and  it 
was  particularly  conspicuous  when  the  grass  was  moist 
with  dew.  This  was  probably  the  same  phenomenon  to 
which  I  have  referred,  which  is  especially  observed  in 
the  morning,  but  also  at  other  times,  and  even  by  moon 
light.  Though  a  constant  one,  it  is  not  commonly  no 
ticed,  and,  in  the  case  of  an  excitable  imagination  like 
Cellini's,  it  would  be  basis  enough  for  superstition.  Be 
side,  he  tells  us  that  he  showed  it  to  very  few.  But  are 
they  not  indeed  distinguished  who  are  conscious  that 
they  are  regarded  at  all  ? 

I  set  out  one  afternoon  to  go  a-fishing  to  Fair  Haven, 
through  the  woods,  to  eke  out  my  scanty  fare  of  vege 
tables.  My  way  led  through  Pleasant  Meadow,  an  ad 
junct  of  the  Baker  Farm,  that  retreat  of  which  a  poet 
has  since  sung,  beginning,  — 

"  Thy  entry  is  a  pleasant  field, 
Which  some  mossy  fruit  trees  yield 
Partly  to  a  ruddy  brook, 
By  gliding  musquash  undertook, 
And  mercurial  trout, 
Darting  about." 

I  thought  of  living  there  before  I  went  to  Walden.  I 
"  hooked  "  the  apples,  leaped  the  brook,  and  scared  the 
musquash  and  the  trout.  It  was  one  of  those  afternoons 
which  seem  indefinitely  long  before  one,  in  which  many 
events  may  happen,  a  large  portion  of  our  natural  life, 
though  it  was  already  half  spent  when  I  started.  By  the 
way  there  came  up  a  shower,  which  compelled  me  to 
stand  half  an  hoar  under  a  pine,  piling  boughs  over  my 


226  WALDEN 

head,  and  wearing  my  handkerchief  for  a  shed;  and 
when  at  length  I  had  made  one  cast  over  the  pickerel- 
weed,  standing  up  to  my  middle  in  water,  I  found  my 
self  suddenly  in  the  shadow  of  a  cloud,  and  the  thunder 
began  to  rumble  with  such  emphasis  that  I  could  do  no 
more  than  listen  to  it.  The  gods  must  be  proud,  thought 
I,  with  such  forked  flashes  to  rout  a  poor  unarmed  fisher 
man.  So  I  made  haste  for  shelter  to  the  nearest  hut, 
which  stood  half  a  mile  from  any  road,  but  so  much  the 
nearer  to  the  pond,  and  had  long  been  uninhabited :  — 

"And  here  a  poet  builded, 
In  the  completed  years, 
For  behold  §  trivial  cabin 
That  to  destruction  steers." 

So  the  Muse  fables.  But  therein,  as  I  found,  dwelt  nott 
John  Field,  an  Irishman,  and  his  wife,  and  several  chil 
dren,  from  the  broad -faced  boy  who  assisted  his  father 
at  his  work,  and  now  came  running  by  his  side  from  the 
bog  to  escape  the  rain,  to  the  wrinkled,  sibyl-like,  cone- 
headed  infant  that  sat  upon  its  father's  knee  as  in  the 
palaces  of  nobles,  and  looked  out  from  its  home  in  the 
midst  of  wet  and  hunger  inquisitively  upon  the  stranger, 
with  the  privilege  of  infancy,  not  knowing  but  it  was  the 
last  of  a  noble  line,  and  the  hope  and  cynosure  of  the 
world,  instead  of  John  Field's  poor  starveling  brat. 
There  we  sat  together  under  that  part  of  the  roof  which 
leaked  the  least,  while  it  showered  and  thundered  with 
out.  I  had  sat  there  many  times  of  old  before  the  ship 
was  built  that  floated  this  family  to  America.  An  hon 
est,  hard-working,  but  shiftless  man  plainly  was  John 
Field ;  and  his  wife,  she  too  was  brave  to  cook  so  many 


BAKER  FARM  227 

successive  dinners  in  the  recesses  of  that  lofty  stove; 
with  round  greasy  face  and  bare  breast,  still  thinking  to 
improve  her  condition  one  day;  with  the  never  absent 
mop  in  one  hand,  and  yet  no  effects  of  it  visible  any 
where.  The  chickens,  which  had  also  taken  shelter  here 
from  the  rain,  stalked  about  the  room  like  members  of 
the  family,  too  humanized,  methought,  to  roast  well. 
They  stood  and  looked  in  my  eye  or  pecked  at  my  shoe 
significantly.  Meanwhile  my  host  told  me  his  story,  how 
hard  he  worked  "bogging"  for  a  neighboring  farmer, 
turning  up  a  meadow  with  a  spade  or  bog  hoe  at  the  rate 
of  ten  dollars  an  acre  and  the  use  of  the  land  with  manure 
for  one  year,  and  his  little  broad-faced  son  worked  cheer 
fully  at  his  father's  side  the  while,  not  knowing  how  poor 
a  bargain  the  latter  had  made.  I  tried  to  help  him  with 
my  experience,  telling  him  that  he  was  one  of  my  nearest 
neighbors,  and  that  I  too,  who  came  a-fishing  here,  and 
looked  like  a  loafer,  was  getting  my  living  like  himself; 
that  I  lived  in  a  tight,  light,  and  clean  house,  which 
hardly  cost  more  than  the  annual  rent  of  such  a  ruin  as 
his  commonly  amounts  to;  and  how,  if  he  chose,  he 
might  in  a  month  or  two  build  himself  a  palace  of  his 
own ;  that  I  did  not  use  tea,  nor  coffee,  nor  butter,  nor 
milk,  nor  fresh  meat,  and  so  did  not  have  to  work  to  get 
them;  again,  as  I  did  not  work  hard,  I  did  not  have  to 
eat  hard,  and  it  cost  me  but  a  trifle  for  my  food;  but  as 
he  began  with  tea,  and  coffee,  and  butter,  and  milk,  and 
beef,  he  had  to  work  hard  to  pay  for  them,  and  when  he 
had  worked  hard  he  had  to  eat  hard  again  to  repair  the 
waste  of  his  system,  —  and  so  it  was  as  broad  as  it  was 
long,  indeed  it  was  broader  than  it  was  long,  for  he  was 


228  WALDEN 

discontented  and  wasted  his  life  into  the  bargain;  and 
yet  he  had  rated  it  as  a  gain  in  coming  to  America,  that 
here  you  could  get  tea,  and  coffee,  and  meat  every  day. 
But  the  only  true  America  is  that  country  where  you  are 
at  liberty  to  pursue  such  a  mode  of  life  as  may  enable 
you  to  do  without  these,  and  where  the  state  does  not 
endeavor  to  compel  you  to  sustain  the  slavery  and  war 
and  other  superfluous  expenses  which  directly  or  in 
directly  result  from  the  use  of  such  things.  For  I  pur 
posely  talked  to  him  as  if  he  were  a  philosopher,  or 
desired  to  be  one.  I  should  be  glad  if  all  the  meadows 
on  the  earth  were  left  in  a  wild  state,  if  that  were  the  con 
sequence  of  men's  beginning  to  redeem  themselves.  A 
man  will  not  need  to  study  history  to  find  out  what  is 
best  for  his  own  culture.  But  alas!  the  culture  of  an 
Irishman  is  an  enterprise  to  be  undertaken  with  a  sort 
of  moral  bog  hoe.  I  told  him,  that  as  he  worked  so  hard 
at  bogging,  he  required  thick  boots  and  stout  clothing, 
which  yet  were  soon  soiled  and  worn  out,  but  I  wore 
light  shoes  and  thin  clothing,  which  cost  not  half  so 
much,  though  he  might  think  that  I  was  dressed  like  a 
gentleman  (which,  however,  was  not  the  case),  and  in 
an  hour  or  two,  without  labor,  but  as  a  recreation,  I 
could,  if  I  wished,  catch  as  many  fish  as  I  should  want 
for  two  days,  or  earn  enough  money  to  support  me  a 
week.  If  he  and  his  family  would  live  simply,  they  might 
all  go  a-huckleberrying  in  the  summer  for  their  amuse 
ment.  John  heaved  a  sigh  at  this,  and  his  wife  stared 
with  arms  a-kimbo,  and  both  appeared  to  be  wondering 
if  they  had  capital  enough  to  begin  such  a  course  with, 
or  arithmetic  enough  to  carry  it  through.  It  was  sailing 


BAKER  FARM  229 

by  dead  reckoning  to  them,  and  they  saw  not  clearly  how 
to  make  their  port  so ;  therefore  I  suppose  they  still  take 
life  bravely,  after  their  fashion,  face  to  face,  giving  it 
'  tooth  and  nail,  not  having  skill  to  split  its  massive  col 
umns  with  any  fine  entering  wedge,  and  rout  it  in  detail ; 
—  thinking  to  deal  with  it  roughly,  as  one  should  handle 
a  thistle.  But  they  fight  at  an  overwhelming  disadvan 
tage, —  living,  John  Field,  alas!  without  arithmetic, 
and  failing  so. 

"  Do  you  ever  fish  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Oh  yes,  I  catch  a  mess 
now  and  then  when  I  am  lying  by;  good  perch  I  catch." 
"  What 's  your  bait  ? "  "I  catch  shiners  with  fishworms, 
and  bait  the  perch  with  them."  "  You  'd  better  go  now, 
John,"  said  his  wife,  with  glistening  and  hopeful  face; 
but  John  demurred. 

The  shower  was  now  over,  and  a  rainbow  above  the 
eastern  woods  promised  a  fair  evening;  so  I  took  my 
departure.  When  I  had  got  without  I  asked  for  a  drink, 
hoping  to  get  a  sight  of  the  well  bottom,  to  complete  my 
survey  of  the  premises;  but  there,  alas!  are  shallows 
and  quicksands,  and  rope  broken  withal,  and  bucket 
irrecoverable.  Meanwhile  the  right  culinary  vessel  was 
selected,  water  was  seemingly  distilled,  and  after  con 
sultation  and  long  delay  passed  out  to  the  thirsty  one,  — 
not  yet  suffered  to  cool,  not  yet  to  settle.  Such  gruel 
sustains  life  here,  I  thought;  so,  shutting  my  eyes,  and 
excluding  the  motes  by  a  skilfully  directed  undercurrent, 
I  drank  to  genuine  hospitality  the  heartiest  draught  I 
could.  I  am  not  squeamish  in  such  cases  when  manners 
are  concerned.  "l^  ^  -w,  &~rj+J[  +9+*9** 

As  I  was  leaving  the  Irishman's  roof  after  the  rain, 


230  WALDEN 

bending  my  steps  again  to  the  pond,  my  haste  to  catch 
pickerel,  wading  in  retired  meadows,  in  sloughs  and  bog- 
holes,  in  forlorn  and  savage  places,  appeared  for  an 
instant  trivial  to  me  who  had  been  sent  to  school  and 
college ;  but  as  I  ran  down  the  hill  toward  the  reddening 
west,  with  the  rainbow  over  my  shoulder,  and  some  faint 
tinkling  sounds  borne  to  my  ear  through  the  cleansed 
air,  from  I  know  not  what  quarter,  my  Good  Genius 
seemed  to  say,  —  Go  fish  and  hunt  far  and  wide  day  by 
day,  —  farther  and  wider,  —  and  rest  thee  by  many 
brooks  and  hearth-sides  without  misgiving.  Remember 
thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth.  Rise  free  from  care 
before  the  dawn,  and  seek  adventures.  Let  the  noon  find 
thee  by  other  lakes,  and  the  night  overtake  thee  every 
where  at  home.  There  are  no  larger  fields  than  these,  no 
worthier  games  than  may  here  be  played.  Grow  wild 
according  to  thy  nature,  like  these  sedges  and  brakes, 
which  will  never  become  English  hay.  Let  the  thunder 
rumble ;  what  if  it  threaten  ruin  to  farmers'  crops  ?  that 
is  not  its  errand  to  thee.  Take  shelter  under  the  cloud, 
while  they  flee  to  carts  and  sheds.  Let  not  to  get  a  living 
be  thy  trade,  but  thy  sport.  Enjoy  the  land,  but  own  it 
not.  Through  want  of  enterprise  and  faith  men  are 
where  they  are,  buying  and  selling,  and  spending  their 
lives  like  serfs. 
O  Baker  Farm! 

"  Landscape  where  the  richest  element 
Is  a  little  sunshine  innocent."  .  .  . 

"  No  one  runs  to  revel 
On  thy  rail-fenced  lea."  .  .  . 


BAKER  FARM  231 

."*  Debate  with  no  man  hast  thou, 

With  questions  art  never  perplexed, 
As  tame  at  the  first  sight  as  now. 

In  thy  plain  russet  gabardine  dressed.*'  .  .  . 

44  Come  ye  who  love, 

And  ye  who  hate. 
Children  of  the  Holy  Dove, 

And  Guy  Faux  of  the  state, 
And  hang  conspiracies 
From  the  tough  rafters  of  the  trees !** 

Men  come  tamely  home  at  night  only  from  the  next 
field  or  street,  where  their  household  echoes  haunt,  and 
their  life  pines  because  it  breathes  its  own  breath  over 
again;  their  shadows,  morning  and  evening,  reach  far 
ther  than  their  daily  steps.  We  should  come  home  from 
far,  from  adventures,  and  perils,  and  discoveries  every 
day,  with  new  experience  and  character. 

Before  I  had  reached  the  pond  some  fresh  impulse 
had  brought  out  John  Field,  with  altered  mind,  letting 
go  "bogging"  ere  this  sunset.  But  he,  poor  man,  dis 
turbed  only  a  couple  of  fins  while  I  was  catching  a  fair 
string,  and  he  said  it  was  his  luck;  but  when  we  changed 
seats  in  the  boat  luck  changed  seats  too.  Poor  John 
Field!  —  I  trust  he  does  not  read  this,  unless  he  will 
improve  by  it,  —  thinking  to  live  by  some  derivative  old- 
country  mode  in  this  primitive  new  country, —  to  catch 
perch  with  shiners.  It  is  good  bait  sometimes,  I  allow. 
With  his  horizon  all  his  own,  yet  he  a  poor  man,  born 
to  be  poor,  with  his  inherited  Irish  poverty  or  poor  life, 
his  Adam's  grandmother  and  boggy  ways,  not  to  rise  in 
this  world,  he  nor  his  posterity,  till  their  wading  webbed 
bog-trotting  feet  get  talaria  to  their  heels. 


XI 
HIGHER  LAWS 

As  I  came  home  through  the  woods  with  my  string 
of  fish,  trailing  my  pole,  it  being  now  quite  dark,  I 
caught  a  glimpse  of  a  woodchuck  stealing  across  my 
path,  and  felt  a  strange  thrill  of  savage  delight,  and  was 
strongly  tempted  to  seize  and  devour  him  raw ;  not  that 
I  was  hungry  then,  except  for  that  wild  ness  which  he 
represented.  Once  or  twice,  however,  while  I  lived  at 
the  pond,  I  found  myself  ranging  the  woods,  like  a  half- 
starved  hound,  with  a  strange  abandonment,  seek 
ing  some  kind  of  venison  which  I  might  devour,  and 
no  morsel  could  have  been  too  savage  for  me.  The  wild 
est  scenes  had  become  unaccountably  familiar.  I  found 
in  myself,  and  still  find,  an  instinct  toward  a  higher, 
or,  as  it  is  named,  spiritual  life,  as  do  most  men,  and 
another  toward  a  primitive  rank  and  savage  one,  and 
I  reverence  them  both.  I  love  the  wild  not  less  than  the 
good.  The  wildness  and  adventure  that  are  in  fishing 
still  recommended  it  to  me.  I  like  sometimes  to  take 
rank  hold  on  life  and  spend  my  day  more  as  the  ani 
mals  do.  Perhaps  I  have  owed  to  this  employment  and 
to  hunting,  when  quite  young,  my  closest  acquaintance 
with  Nature.  They  early  introduce  us  to  and  detain  us 
in  scenery  with  which  otherwise,  at  -that  age,  we  should 
have  little  acquaintance.  Fishermen,  hunters,  wood- 


HIGHER  LAWS  233 

choppers,  and  others,  spending  their  lives  in  the  fields^ 
and  woods,  in  a  peculiar  sense  a  part  of  Nature  them 
selves,  are  often  in  a  more  favorable  mood  for  observing 
her,  in  the  intervals  of  their  pursuits,  than  philosophers 
or  poets  even,  who  approach  her  with  expectation.  She 
is  not  afraid  to  exhibit  herself  to  them.  The  traveller 
on  the  prairie  is  naturally  a  hunter,  on  the  head  waters 
of  the  Missouri  and  Columbia  a  trapper,  and  at  the 
Falls  of  St.  Mary  a  fisherman.  He  who  is  only  a  traveller 
learns  things  at  second-hand  and  by  the  halves,  and  is 
poor  authority.  We  are  most  interested  when  science 
reports  what  those  men  already  know  practically  or 
instinctively,  for  that  alone  is  a  true  humanity,  or  ac 
count  of  human  experience. 

They  mistake  who  assert  that  the  Yankee  has  few 
amusements,  because  he  has  not  so  many  public  holi 
days,  and  men  and  boys  do  not  play  so  many  games  as 
they  do  in  England,  for  here  the  more  primitive  but 
solitary  amusements  of  hunting,  fishing,  and  the  like 
have  not  yet  given  place  to  the  former.  Almost  every 
New  England  boy  among  my  contemporaries  shouldered 
a  fowling-piece  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  fourteen; 
and  his  hunting  and  fishing  grounds  were  not  limited, 
like  the  preserves  of  an  English  nobleman,  but  were 
more  boundless  even  than  those  of  a  savage.  No  won 
der,  then,  that  he  did  not  oftener  stay  to  play  on  the 
common.  But  already  a  change  is  taking  place,  owing, 
not  to  an  increased  humanity,  but  to  an  increased 
scarcity  of  game,  for  perhaps  the  hunter  is  the  great 
est  friend  of  the  animals  hunted,  not  excepting  the 
Humane  Society, 


234  WALDEN 

Moreover,  when  at  the  pond,  I  wished  sometimes  to 
add  fish  to  my  fare  for  variety.  I  have  actually  fished 
from  the  same  kind  of  necessity  that  the  first  fishers 
did.  Whatever  humanity  I  might  conjure  up  against  it 
was  all  factitious,  and  concerned  my  philosophy  more 
than  my  feelings.  I  speak  of  fishing  only  now,  for  I  had 
long  felt  differently  about  fowling,  and  sold  my  gun 
before  I  went  to  the  woods.  Not  that  I  am  less  humane 
than  others,  but  I  did  not  perceive  that  my  feelings  were 
much  affected.  I  did  not  pity  the  fishes  nor  the  worms. 
This  was  habit.  As  for  fowling,  during  the  last  years  that 
I  carried  a  gun  my  excuse  was  that  I  was  studying 
ornithology,  and  sought  only  new  or  rare  birds.  But 
I  confess  that  I  am  now  inclined  to  think  that  there  is  a 
finer  way  of  studying  ornithology  than  this.  It  requires 
so  much  closer  attention  to  the  habits  of  the  birds,  that, 
if  for  that  reason  only,  I  have  been  willing  to  omit  the 
gun.  Yet  notwithstanding  the  objection  on  the  score  of 
humanity,  I  am  compelled  to  doubt  if  equally  valuable 
sports  are  ever  substituted  for  these;  and  when  some 
of  my  friends  have  asked  me  anxiously  about  their  boys, 
whether  they  should  let  them  hunt,  I  have  answered, 
yes, —  remembering  that  it  was  one  of  the  best  parts  of 
my  education,  —  make  them  hunters,  though  sports 
men  only  at  first,  if  possible,  mighty  hunters  at  last, 
so  that  they  shall  not  find  game  large  enough  for  them 
in  this  or  any  vegetable  wilderness,  —  hunters  as  well 
as  fishers  of  men.  Thus  far  I  am  of  the  opinion  of 
x^  Chaucer's  nun,  who 

"yave  not  of  the  text  a  pulled  hen 
That  saith  that  hunters  ben  not  holy  men." 


HIGHER   LAWS  235 

There  is  a  period  in  the  history  of  the  individual,  as  of 
the  race,  when  the  hunters  are  the  "best  men,"  as  the 
Algonquins  called  them.  We  cannot  but  pity  the  boy 
who  has  never  fired  a  gun ;  he  is  no  more  humane,  while 
his  education  has  been  sadly  neglected.  This  was  my 
answer  with  respect  to  those  youths  who  were  bent  on  ' 
this  pursuit,  trusting  that  they  would  soon  outgrow  it. 
No  humane  being,  past  the  thoughtless  age  of  boyhood, 
will  wantonly  murder  any  creature  which  holds  its 
life  by  the  same  tenure  that  he  does.  The  hare  in  its 
extremity  cries  like  a  child.  I  warn  you,  mothers, 
that  my  sympathies  do  not  always  make  the  usual  phil- 
anthropic  distinctions. 

Such  is  oftenest  the  young  man's  introduction  to  the 
forest,  and  the  most  original  part  of  himself.  He  goes 
thither  at  first  as  a  hunter  and  fisher,  until  at  last,  if  he 
has  the  seeds  of  a  better  life  in  him,  he  distinguishes  his 
proper  objects,  as  a  poet  or  naturalist  it  may  be,  and 
leaves  the  gun  and  fish-pole  behind.  The  mass  of  men 
are  still  and  always  young  in  this  respect.  In  some 
countries  a  hunting  parson  is  no  uncommon  sight.  Such 
a  one  might  make  a  good  shepherd's  dog,  but  is  far 
from  being  the  Good  Shepherd.  I  have  been  surprised 
to  consider  that  the  only  obvious  employment,  except 
wood-chopping,  ice-cutting,  or  the  like  business,  which 
ever  to  my  knowledge  detained  at  Walden  Pond  for  a 
whole  half -day  any  of  my  fellow-citizens,  whether  fa 
thers  or  children  of  the  town,  with  just  one  exception, 
was  fishing.  Commonly  they  did  not  think  that  they 
were  lucky,  or  well  paid  for  their  time,  unless  they  got 
a  long  string  of  fish,  though  they  had  the  opportunity 


236  WALDEN 

of  seeing  the  pond  all  the  while.  They  might  go  there  a 
thousand  times  before  the  sediment  of  fishing  would 
sink  to  the  bottom  and  leave  their  purpose  pure ;  but 
no  doubt  such  a  clarifying  process  would  be  going  on  all 
the  while.  The  Governor  and  his  Council  faintly  re 
member  the  pond,  for  they  went  a-fishing  there  when 
they  were  boys ;  but  now  they  are  too  old  and  dignified 
to  go  a-fishing,  and  so  they  know  it  no  more  forever. 
Yet  even  they  expect  to  go  to  heaven  at  last.  If  the 
legislature  regards  it,  it  is  chiefly  to  regulate  the  num 
ber  of  hooks  to  be  used  there ;  but  they  know  nothing 
about  the  hook  of  hooks  with  which  to  angle  for  the 
pond  itself,  impaling  the  legislature  for  a  bait.  Thus, 
even  in  civilized  communities,  the  embryo  man  passes 
through  the  hunter  stage  of  development. 

I  have  found  repeatedly,  of  late  years,  that  I  cannot 
fish  without  falling  a  little  in  self-respect.  I  have  tried 
it  again  and  again.  I  have  skill  at  it,  and,  like  many 
of  my  fellows,  a  certain  instinct  for  it,  which  revives 
from  time  to  time,  but  always  when  I  have  done  I  feel 
that  it  would  have  been  better  if  I  had  not  fished.  I 
think  that  I  do  not  mistake.  It  is  a  faint  intimation,  yet 
so  are  the  first  streaks  of  morning.  There  is  unques 
tionably  this  instinct  in  me  which  belongs  to  the  lower 
orders  of  creation;  yet  with  every  year  I  am  less  a 
fisherman,  though  without  more  humanity  or  even 
wisdom;  at  present  I  am  no  fisherman  at  all.  But  I 
see  that  if  I  were  to  live  in  a  wilderness  I  should  again 
be  tempted  to  become  a  fisher  and  hunter  in  earnest. 
Beside,  there  is  something  essentially  unclean  about 
this  diet  and  all  flesh,  and  I  began  to  see  where  house- 


HIGHER  LAWS  237 

work  commences,  and  whence  the  endeavor,  which 
costs  so  much,  to  wear  a  tidy  and  respectable  appear 
ance  each  day,  to  keep  the  house  sweet  and  free  from 
all  ill  odors  and  sights.  Having  been  my  own  butcher 
and  scullion  and  cook,  as  well  as  the  gentleman  for 
whom  the  dishes  were  served  up,  I  can  speak  from  an 
unusually  complete  experience.  The  practical  objection 
to  animal  food  in  my  case  was  its  uncleanness;  and 
besides,  when  I  had  caught  and  cleaned  and  cooked  and 
eaten  my  fish,  they  seemed  not  to  have  fed  me  essentially. 
It  was  insignificant  and  unnecessary,  and  cost  more  than 
it  came  to.  A  little  bread  or  a  few  potatoes  would  have 
done  as  well,  with  less  trouble  and  filth.  Like  many  of 
my  contemporaries,  I  had  rarely  for  many  years  used 
animal  food,  or  tea,  or  coffee,  etc. ;  not  so  much  because 
of  any  ill  effects  which  I  had  traced  to  them,  as  because 
they  were  not  agreeable  to  my  imagination.  The  re 
pugnance  to  animal  food  is  not  the  effect  of  experience, 
but  is  an  instinct.  It  appeared  more  beautiful  to  live 
low  and  fare  hard  in  many  respects ;  and  though  I  never 
did  so,  I  went  far  enough  to  please  my  imagination.  I 
believe  that  every  man  who  has  ever  been  earnest  to 
preserve  his  higher  or  poetic  faculties  in  the  best  con 
dition  has  been  particularly  inclined  to  abstain  from 
animal  food,  and  from  much  food  of  any  kind.  It  is  a 
significant  fact,  stated  by  entomologists,  —  I  find  it  in 
Kirby  and  Spence,  —  that  "  some  insects  in  their  perfect 
state,  though  furnished  with  organs  of  feeding,  make 
no  use  of  them;"  and  they  lay  it  down  as  "a  general 
rule,  that  almost  all  insects  in  this  state  eat  much  less 
than  in  that  of  larvae.  The  voracious  caterpillar  when 


238  WALDEN 

transformed  into  a  butterfly  .  .  .  and  the  gluttonous 
maggot  when  become  a  fly  "  content  themselves  with 
a  drop  or  two  of  honey  or  some  other  sweet  liquid. 
The  abdomen  under  the  wings  of  the  butterfly  still 
represents  the  larva.  This  is  the  tidbit  which  tempts 
his  insectivorous  fate.  The  gross  feeder  is  a  man  in 
the  larva  state;  and  there  are  whole  nations  in  that 
condition,  nations  without  fancy  or  imagination,  whose 
vast  abdomens  betray  them. 

It  is  hard  to  provide  and  cook  so  simple  and  clean  a 
diet  as  will  not  offend  the  imagination;  but  this,  I  think, 
is  to  be  fed  when  we  feed  the  body;  they  should  both 
sit  down  at  the  same  table.  Yet  perhaps  this  may  be 
done.  The  fruits  eaten  temperately  need  not  make  us 
ashamed  of  our  appetites,  nor  interrupt  the  worthiest 
pursuits.  But  put  an  extra  condiment  into  your  dish,  and 
it  will  poison  you.  It  is  not  worth  the  while  to  live  by 
rich  cookery.  Most  men  would  feel  shame  if  caught 
preparing  with  their  own  hands  precisely  such  a  dinner, 
whether  of  animal  or  vegetable  food,  as  is  every  day 
prepared  for  them  by  others.  Yet  till  this  is  otherwise 
we  are  not  civilized,  and,  if  gentlemen  and  ladies,  are 
not  true  men  and  women.  This  certainly  suggests  what 
change  is  to  be  made.  It  may  be  vain  to  ask  why  the 
imagination  will  not  be  reconciled  to  flesh  and  fat.  I 
am  satisfied  that  it  is  not.  Is  it  not  a  reproach  that  man 
is  a  carnivorous  animal  ?  True,  he  can  and  does  live, 
in  a  great  measure,  by  preying  on  other  animals;  but 
this  is  a  miserable  way,  —  as  any  one  who  will  go  to 
snaring  rabbits,  or  slaughtering  lambs,  may  learn,  — 
and  he  will  be  regarded  as  a  benefactor  of  his  race  who 


HIGHER   LAWS  239 

shall  teach  man  to  confine  himself  to  a  more  innocent 
and  wholesome  diet.  Whatever  my  own  practice  may 
be,  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  destiny  of  the 
human  race,  in  its  gradual  improvement,  to  leave  off 
eating  animals,  as  surely  as  the  savage  tribes  have  left 
off  eating  each  other  when  they  came  in  contact  with 
the  more  civilized. 

If  one  listens  to  the  faintest  but  constant  suggestions 
of  his  genius,  which  are  certainly  true,  he  sees  not  to 
what  extremes,  or  even  insanity,  it  may  lead  him;  and 
yet  that  way,  as  he  grows  more  resolute  and  faithful, 
his  road  lies.  The  faintest  assured  objection  which  one 
healthy  man  feels  will  at  length  prevail  over  the  argu 
ments  and  customs  of  mankind.  No  man  ever  followed 
his  genius  till  it  misled  him.  Though  the  result  were 
bodily  weakness,  yet  perhaps  no  one  can  say  that  the 
consequences  were  to  be  regretted,  for  these  were  a  life 
in  conformity  to  higher  principles.  If  the  day  and  the 
night  are  such  that  you  greet  them  with  joy,  and  life 
emits  a  fragrance  like  flowers  and  sweet-scented  herbs, 
is  more  elastic,  more  starry,  more  immortal,  —  that  is 
your  success.  All  nature  is  your  congratulation,  and 
you  have  cause  momentarily  to  bless  yourself.  The 
greatest  gains  and  values  are  farthest  from  being  ap 
preciated.  We  easily  come  to  doubt  if  they  exist.  We 
soon  forget  them.  They  are  the  highest  reality.  Per 
haps  the  facts  most  astounding  and  most  real  are  never 
communicated  by  man  to  man.  The  true  harvest  of  my 
daily  life  is  somewhat  as  intangible  and  indescribable 
as  the  tints  of  morning  or  evening.  It  is  a  little  star-dust 
caught,  a  segment  of  the  rainbow  which  I  have  clutched. 


240  WALDEN 

Yet,  for  my  part,  I  was  never  unusually  squeamish; 
I  could  sometimes  eat  a  fried  rat  with  a  good  relish,  if 
it  were  necessary.  I  am  glad  to  have  drunk  water  so 
long,  for  the  same  reason  that  I  prefer  the  natural  sky 
to  an  opium-eater's  heaven.  I  would  fain  keep  sober 
always;  and  there  are  infinite  degrees  of  drunkenness. 
I  believe  that  water  is  the  only  drink  for  a  wise  man; 
wine  is  not  so  noble  a  liquor;  and  think  of  dashing  the 
hopes  of  a  morning  with  a  cup  of  warm  coffee,  or  of  an 
evening  with  a  dish  of  tea!  Ah,  how  low  I  fall  when  I 
am  tempted  by  them !  Even  music  may  be  intoxicating. 
Such  apparently  slight  causes  destroyed  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  will  destroy  England  and  America.  Of  all 
ebriosity,  who  does  not  prefer  to  be  intoxicated  by  the 
air  he  breathes  ?  I  have  found  it  to  be  the  most  serious 
objection  to  coarse  labors  long  continued,  that  they 
compelled  me  to  eat  and  drink  coarsely  also.  But  to  tell 
the  truth,  I  find  myself  at  present  somewhat  less  par 
ticular  in  these  respects.  I  carry  less  religion  to  the 
table,  ask  no  blessing;  not  because  I  am  wiser  than  I 
was,  but,  I  am  obliged  to  confess,  because,  however 
much  it  is  to  be  regretted,  with  years  I  have  grown 
more  coarse  and  indifferent.  Perhaps  these  questions 
are  entertained  only  in  youth,  as  most  believe  of  poetry. 
My  practice  is  "  nowhere,"  my  opinion  is  here.  Never 
theless  I  am  far  from  regarding  myself  as  one  of  those 
privileged  ones  to  whom  the  Ved  refers  when  it  says, 
that  "  he  who  has  true  faith  in  the  Omnipresent  Supreme 
Being  may  eat  all  that  exists,"  that  is,  is  not  bound  to 
inquire  what  is  his  food,  or  who  prepares  it;  and  even 
in  their  case  it  is  to  be  observed,  as  a  Hindoo  commen- 


HIGHER  LAWS  241 

tator  has  remarked,  that  the  Vedant  limits  this  privilege 
to  "the  time  of  distress." 

Who  has  not  sometimes  derived  an  inexpressible 
satisfaction  from  his  food  in  which  appetite  had  no 
share  ?  I  have  been  thrilled  to  think  that  I  owed  a  men 
tal  perception  to  the  commonly  gross  sense  of  taste,  that 
I  have  been  inspired  through  the  palate,  that  some 
berries  which  I  had  eaten  on  a  hillside  had  fed  my 
genius.  "The  soul  not  being  mistress  of  herself,"  says 
Thseng-tseu,  "one  looks,  and  one  does  not  see;  one 
listens,  and  one  does  not  hear;  one  eats,  and  one  does 
not  know  the  savor  of  food."  He  who  distinguishes  the 
true  savor  of  his  food  can  never  be  a  glutton;  he  who 
does  not  cannot  be  otherwise.  A  puritan  may  go  to  his 
brown-bread  crust  with  as  gross  an  appetite  as  ever 
an  alderman  to  his  turtle.  Not  that  food  which  entereth 
into  the  mouth  defileth  a  man/' but  the  appetite  with 
which  it  is  eaten.  It  is  neither  the  quality  nor  the 
quantity,  but  the  devotion  to  sensual  savors;  when 
that  which  is  eaten  is  not  a  viand  to  sustain  our  animal, 
or  inspire  our  spiritual  life,  but  food  for  the  worms  that 
possess  us.  If  the  hunter  has  a  taste  for  mud-turtles, 
muskrats,  and  other  such  savage  tidbits,  the  fine  lady 
indulges  a  taste  for  jelly  made  of  a  calf's  foot,  or  for 
sardines  from  over  the  sea,  and  they  are  even.  He  goes 
to  the  mill-pond,  she  to  her  preserve-pot.  The  wonder 
is  how  they,  how  you  and  I,  can  live  this  slimy,  beastly 
life,  eating  and  drinking. 

Our  whole  life  is  startlingly  moral.  There  is  never 
an  instant's  truce  between  virtue  and  vice.  Goodness 
is  the  only  investment  that  never  fails.  In  the  music 


£42  WALDEN 

of  the  harp  which  trembles  round  the  world  it  is  the  in 
sisting  on  this  which  thrills  us.  The  harp  is  the  travelling 
patterer  for  the  Universe's  Insurance  Company,  re 
commending  its  laws,  and  our  little  goodness  is  all  the 
assessment  that  we  pay.  Though  the  youth  at  last  grows 
indifferent,  the  laws  of  the  universe  are  not  indifferent, 
but  are  forever  on  the  side  of  the  most  sensitive.  Listen 
to  every  zephyr  for  some  reproof,  for  it  is  surely  there, 
and  he  is  unfortunate  who  does  not  hear  it.  We  cannot 
touch  a  string  or  move  a  stop  but  the  charming  moral 
transfixes  us.  Many  an  irksome  noise,  go  a  long  way 
off,  is  heard  as  music,  a  proud,  sweet  satire  on  the  mean 
ness  of  our  lives. 

We  are  conscious  of  an  animal  in  us,  which  awakens 
in  proportion  as  our  higher  nature  slumbers.  It  is 
reptile  and  sensual,  and  perhaps  cannot  be  wholly  ex 
pelled;  like  the  worms  which,  even  in  life  and  health, 
occupy  our  bodies.  Possibly  we  may  withdraw  from  it, 
but  never  change  its  nature.  I  fear  that  it  may  enjoy  a 
certain  health  of  its  own ;  that  we  may  be  well,  yet  not 
pure.  The  other  day  I  picked  up  the  lower  jaw  of  a  hog, 
with  white  and  sound  teeth  and  tusks,  which  suggested 
that  there  was  an  animal  health  and  vigor  distinct  from 
the  spiritual.  This  creature  succeeded  by  other  means 
than  temperance  and  purity.  "That  in  which  men 
differ  from  brute  beasts,"  says  Mencius,  "  is  a  thing  very 
inconsiderable;  the  common  herd  lose  it  very  soon; 
superior  men  preserve  it  carefully."  Who  knows  what 
sort  of  life  would  result  if  we  had  attained  to  purity  ? 
If  I  knew  so  wise  a  man  as  could  teach  me  purity  I 
would  go  to  seek  him  forthwith.  "  A  command  over  our 


HIGHER  LAWS  243 

passions,  and  over  the  external  senses  of  the  body,  and 
good  acts,  are  declared  by  the  Ved  to  be  indispensable 
in  the  mind's  approximation  to  God."  Yet  the  spirit 
can  for  the  time  pervade  and  control  every  member 
and  function  of  the  body,  and  transmute  what  in  form 
is  the  grossest  sensuality  into  purity  and  devotion.  The 
generative  energy,  which,  when  we  are  loose,  dissipates 
and  makes  us  unclean,  when  we  are  continent  invigor 
ates  and  inspires  us.  Chastity  is  the  flowering  of  man; 
and  what  are  called  Genius,  Heroism,  Holiness,  and 
the  like,  are  but  various  fruits  which  succeed  it.  Man 
flows  at  once  to  God  when  the  channel  of  purity  is  open. 
By  turns  our  purity  inspires  and  our  impurity  casts  us 
down.  He  is  blessed  who  is  assured  that  the  animal 
is  dying  out  in  him  day  by  day,  and  the  divine  being 
established.  Perhaps  there  is  none  but  has  cause  for 
shame  on  account  of  the  inferior  and  brutish  nature 
to  which  he  is  allied.  I  fear  that  we  are  such  gods  or 
demigods  only  as  fauns  and  satyrs,  the  divine  allied 
to  beasts,  the  creatures  of  appetite,  and  that,  to  some 
extent,  our  very  life  is  our  disgrace.  — 

"How  happy  's  he  who  hath  due  place  assigned     <*- 
To  his  beasts  and  disafforested  his  mind! 

Can  use  his  horse,  goat,  wolf,  and  ev'ry  beast,    ~^~ 

And  is  not  ass  himself  to  all  the  rest!  G. 

Else  man  not  only  is  the  herd  of  swine, 

But  he  's  those  devils  too  which  did  incline 

Them  to  a  headlong  rage,  and  made  them  worse."  f-- 

All  sensuality  is  one,  though  it  takes  many  forms; 
all  purity  is  one.  It  is  the  same  whether  a  man  eat,  or 
drink,  or  cohabit,  or  sleep  sensually.  They  are  but  one 


244  WALDEN 

appetite,  and  we  only  need  to  see  a  person  do  any  one 
of  these  things  to  know  how  great  a  sensualist  he  is. 
The  impure  can  neither  stand  nor  sit  with  purity.  When 
the  reptile  is  attacked  at  one  mouth  of  his  burrow,  he 
shows  himself  at  another.  If  you  would  be  chaste,  you 
must  be  temperate.  What  is  chastity?  How  shall  a 
man  know  if  he  is  chaste  ?  He  shall  not  know  it.  We 
have  heard  of  this  virtue,  but  we  know  not  what  it  is. 
We  speak  conformably  to  the  rumor  which  we  have 
heard.  From  exertion  come  wisdom  and  purity;  from 
sloth  ignorance  and  sensuality.  In  the  student  sensuality 
is  a  sluggish  habit  of  mind.  An  unclean  person  is  uni 
versally  a  slothful  one,  one  who  sits  by  a  stove,  whom 
the  sun  shines  on  prostrate,  who  reposes  without  being 
fatigued.  If  you  would  avoid  uncleanness,  and  all  the 
sins,  work  earnestly,  though  it  be  at  cleaning  a  stable. 
Nature  is  hard  to  be  overcome,  but  she  must  be  over 
come.  What  avails  it  that  you  are  Christian,  if  you  are 
not  purer  than  the  heathen,  if  you  deny  yourself  no 
more,  if  you  are  not  more  religious  ?  I  know  of  many 
systems  of  religion  esteemed  heathenish  whose  precepts 
fill  the  reader  with  shame,  and  provoke  him  to  new 
endeavors,  though  it  be  to  the  performance  of  rites 
merely. 

I  hesitate  to  say  these  things,  but  it  is  not  because  of 
the  subject,  —  I  care  not  how  obscene  my  words  are,  — 
but  because  I  cannot  speak  of  them  without  betraying 
my  impurity.  We  discourse  freely  without  shame  of  one 
form  of  sensuality,  and  are  silent  about  another.  We 
are  so  degraded  that  we  cannot  speak  simply  of  the 
necessary  functions  of  human  nature.  In  earlier  ages, 


HIGHER  LAWS  245 

in  some  countries,  every  function  was  reverently  spoken 
of  and  regulated  by  law.  Nothing  was  too  trivial  for 
the  Hindoo  lawgiver,  however  offensive  it  may  be  to 
modern  taste.  He  teaches  how  to  eat,  drink,  cohabit, 
void  excrement  and  urine,  and  the  like,  elevating  what 
is  mean,  and  does  not  falsely  excuse  himself  by  calling 
these  things  trifles. 

Every  man  is  the  builder  of  a  temple,  called  his  body, 
to  the  god  he  worships,  after  a  style  purely  his  own, 
nor  can  he  get  off  by  hammering  marble  instead.  We 
are  all  sculptors  and  painters,  and  our  material  is  our 
own  flesh  and  blood  and  bones.  Any  nobleness  begins 
at  once  to  refine  a  man's  features,  any  meanness  or 
sensuality  to  imbrute  them. 

John  Farmer  sat  at  his  door  one  September  evening, 
after  a  hard  day's  work,  his  mind  still  running  on  his 
labor  more  or  less.  Having  bathed,  he  sat  down  to 
re-create  his  intellectual  man.  It  was  a  rather  cool  even 
ing,  and  some  of  his  neighbors  were  apprehending  a 
frost.  He  had  not  attended  to  the  train  of  his  thoughts 
long  when  he  heard  some  one  playing  on  a  flute,  and 
that  sound  harmonized  with  his  mood.  Still  he  thought 
of  his  work;  but  the  burden  of  his  thought  was,  that 
though  this  kept  running  in  his  head,  and  he  found 
himself  planning  and  contriving  it  against  his  will,  yet 
it  concerned  him  very  little.  It  was  no  more  than  the 
scurf  of  his  skin,  which  was  constantly  shuffled  off.  But 
the  notes  of  the  flute  came  home  to  his  ears  out  of  a 
different  sphere  from  that  he  worked  in,  and  suggested 
work  for  certain  faculties  which  slumbered  in  him.  They 
gently  did  away  with  the  street,  and  the  village,  and  the 


246  WALDEN 

state  in  which  he  lived.  A  voice  said  to  him,  —  Why  do 
you  stay  here  and  live  this  mean  moiling  life,  when  a 
glorious  existence  is  possible  for  you?  Those  same 
stars  twinkle  over  other  fields  than  these.  —  But  how 
to  come  out  of  this  condition  and  actually  migrate 
thither  ?  All  that  he  could  think  of  was  to  practise  some 
new  austerity,  to  let  his  mind  descend  into  his  body  and 
redeem  it,  and  treat  himself  with  ever  increasing  respect. 


XII 
BRUTE  NEIGHBORS 

SOMETIMES  I  had  a  companion  in  my  fishing,  who 
came  through  the  village  to  my  house  from  the  other 
side  of  the  town,  and  the  catching  of  the  dinner  was  as 
much  a  social  exercise  as  the  eating  of  it. 

Hermit.  I  wonder  what  the  world  is  doing  now.  I 
have  not  heard  so  much  as  a  locust  over  the  sweet -fern 
these  three  hours.  The  pigeons  are  all  asleep  upon  their 
roosts,  —  no  flutter  from  them.  Was  that  a  farmer's 
noon  horn  which  sounded  from  beyond  the  woods  just 
now  ?  The  hands  are  coming  in  to  boiled  salt  beef  and 
cider  and  Indian  bread.  Why  will  men  worry  them 
selves  so  ?  He  that  does  not  eat  need  not  work.  I  won 
der  how  much  they  have  reaped.  Who  would  live  there 
where  a  body  can  never  think  for  the  barking  of  Bose  ? 
And  oh,  the  housekeeping!  to  keep  bright  the  devil's 
door-knobs,  and  scour  his  tubs  this  bright  day!  Better 
not  keep  a  house.  Say,  some  hollow  tree;  and  then  for 
morning  calls  and  dinner-parties!  Only  a  woodpecker 
tapping.  Oh,  they  swarm;  the  sun  is  too  warm  there; 
they  are  born  too  far  into  life  for  me.  I  have  water  from 
the  spring,  and  a  loaf  of  brown  bread  on  the  shelf.  — 
Hark !  I  hear  a  rustling  of  the  leaves.  Is  it  some  ill-fed 
village  hound  yielding  to  the  instinct  of  the  chase  ?  or 
the  lost  pig  which  is  said  to  be  in  these  woods,  whose 


248  WALDEN 

tracks  I  saw  after  the  rain  ?  It  comes  on  apace ;  my 
sumachs  and  sweetbriers  tremble.  —  Eh,  Mr.  Poet,  is 
it  you  ?  How  do  you  like  the  world  to-day  ? 
VA  Poet.  See  those  clouds;  how  they  hang!  That's  the 
greatest  thing  I  have  seen  to-day.  There 's  nothing  like 
it  in  old  paintings,  nothing  like  it  in  foreign  lands,  — 
unless  when  we  were  off  the  coast  of  Spain.  That 's  a 
true  Mediterranean  sky.  I  thought,  as  I  have  my  living 
to  get,  and  have  not  eaten  to-day,  that  I  might  go  a-fish- 
ing.  That 's  the  true  industry  for  poets.  It  is  the  only 
trade  I  have  learned.  Come,  let's  along. 

Hermit.  I  cannot  resist.  My  brown  bread  will  soon 
be  gone.  I  will  go  with  you  gladly  soon,  but  I  am  just 
concluding  a  serious  meditation.  I  think  that  I  am  near 
the  end  of  it.  Leave  me  alone,  then,  for  a  while.  But 
that  we  may  not  be  delayed,  you  shall  be  digging  the 
bait  meanwhile.  Angleworms  are  rarely  to  be  met  with 
in  these  parts,  where  the  soil  was  never  fattened  with 
manure;  the  race  is  nearly  extinct.  The  sport  of  dig 
ging  the  bait  is  nearly  equal  to  that  of  catching  the  fish, 
when  one's  appetite  is  not  too  keen ;  and  this  you  may 
have  all  to  yourself  to-day.  I  would  advise  you  to  set  in 
the  spade  down  yonder  among  the  ground-nuts,  where 
you  see  the  johnswort  waving.  I  think  that  I  may  war 
rant  you  one  worm  to  every  three  sods  you  turn  up,  if 
you  look  well  in  among  the  roots  of  the  grass,  as  if  you 
were  weeding.  Or,  if  you  choose  to  go  farther,  it  will 
not  be  unwise,  for  I  have  found  the  increase  of  fair  bait 
to  be  very  nearly  as  the  squares  of  the  distances. 

Hermit  alone.  Let  me  see;  where  was  I?  Methinks 
I  was  nearly  in  this  frame  of  mind ;  the  world  lay  about 


BRUTE   NEIGHBORS  249 

at  this  angle.  Shall  I  go  to  heaven  or  a-fishing  ?  If  I 
should  soon  bring  this  meditation  to  an  end,  would 
another  so  sweet  occasion  be  likely  to  offer  ?  I  was  as 
near  being  resolved  into  the  essence  of  things  as  ever  I 
was  in  my  life.  I  fear  my  thoughts  will  not  come  back 
to  me.  If  it  would  do  any  good,  I  would  whistle  for 
them.  When  they  make  us  an  offer,  is  it  wise  to  say, 
We  will  think  of  it  ?  My  thoughts  have  left  no  track, 
and  I  cannot  find  the  path  again.  What  was  it  that  I 
was  thinking  of?  It  was  a  very  hazy  day.  I  will  just 
try  these  three  sentences  of  Conf ut-see ;  they  may  fetch 
that  state  about  again.  I  know  not  whether  it  was  the 
dumps  or  a  budding  ecstasy.  Mem.  There  never  is 
but  one  opportunity  of  a  kind. 

Poet.  How  now,  Hermit,  is  it  too  soon  ?  I  have  got 
just  thirteen  whole  ones,  beside  several  which  are  im 
perfect  or  undersized;  but  they  will  do  for  the  smaller 
fry;  they  do  not  cover  up  the  hook  so  much.  Those 
village  worms  are  quite  too  large;  a  shiner  may  make 
a  meal  off  one  without  finding  the  skewer. 

Hermit.  Well,  then,  let 's  be  off.  Shall  we  to  the  Con 
cord  ?  There 's  good  sport  there  if  the  water  be  not  too 
high. 

Why  do  precisely  these  objects  which  we  behold 
make  a  world  ?  Why  has  man  just  these  species  of  ani 
mals  for  his  neighbors ;  as  if  nothing  but  a  mouse  could 
have  filled  this  crevice  ?  I  suspect  that  Pilpay  &  Co. 
have  put  animals  to  their  best  use,  for  they  are  all  beasts 
of  burden,  in  a  sense,  made  to  carry  some  portion  of  our 
thoughts. 


250  WALDEN 

The  mice  which  haunted  my  house  were  not  the 
common  ones,  which  are  said  to  have  been  introduced 
into  the  country,  but  a  wild  native  kind  not  found  in  the 
village.  I  sent  one  to  a  distinguished  naturalist,  and  it  in 
terested  him  much.  When  I  was  building,  one  of  these 
had  its  nest  underneath  the  house,  and  before  I  had 
laid  the  second  floor,  and  swept  out  the  shavings,  would 
come  out  regularly  at  lunch  time  and  pick  up  the  crumbs 
at  my  feet.  It  probably  had  never  seen  a  man  before; 
and  it  soon  became  quite  familiar,  and  would  run  over 
my  shoes  and  up  my  clothes.  It  could  readily  ascend 
the  sides  of  the  room  by  short  impulses,  like  a  squirrel, 
which  it  resembled  in  its  motions.  At  length,  as  I  leaned 
with  my  elbow  on  the  bench  one  day,  it  ran  up  my 
clothes,  and  along  my  sleeve,  and  round  and  round  the 
paper  which  held  my  dinner,  while  I  kept  the  latter 
close,  and  dodged  and  played  at  bopeep  with  it;  and 
when  at  last  I  held  still  a  piece  of  cheese  between  my 
thumb  and  finger,  it  came  and  nibbled  it,  sitting  in  my 
hand,  and  afterward  cleaned  its  face  and  paws,  like  a 
fly,  and  walked  away. 

A  phcebe  soon  built  in  my  shed,  and  a  robin  for  pro 
tection  in  a  pine  which  grew  against  the  house.  In  June 
the  partridge  (Tetrao  umbellus),  which  is  so  shy  a  bird, 
led  her  brood  past  my  windows,  from  the  woods  in  the 
rear  to  the  front  of  my  house,  clucking  and  calling  to 
£hem  like  a  hen,  and  in  all  her  behavior  proving  her 
self  the  hen  of  the  woods.  The  young  suddenly  disperse 
on  your  approach,  at  a  signal  from  the  mother,  as  if  a 
whirlwind  had  swept  them  away,  and  they  so  exactly 
resemble  the  dried  leaves  and  twigs  that  many  a  travel- 


BRUTE   NEIGHBORS  251 

ler  has  placed  his  foot  in  the  midst  of  a  brood,  and  heard 
the  whir  of  the  old  bird  as  she  flew  off,  and  her  anxious 
calls  and  mewing,  or  seen  her  trail  her  wings  to  attract 
his  attention,  without  suspecting  their  neighborhood. 
The  parent  will  sometimes  roll  and  spin  round  before 
you  in  such  a  dishabille,  that  you  cannot,  for  a  few 
moments,  detect  what  kind  of  creature  it  is.  The 
young  squat  still  and  flat,  often  running  their  heads 
under  a  leaf,  and  mind  only  their  mother's  directions 
given  from  a  distance,  nor  will  your  approach  make 
them  run  again  and  betray  themselves.  You  may  even 
tread  on  them,  or  have  your  eyes  on  them  for  a  minute, 
without  discovering  them.  I  have  held  them  in  my 
open  hand  at  such  a  time,  and  still  their  only  care, 
obedient  to  their  mother  and  their  instinct,  was  to  squat 
there  without  fear  or  trembling.  So  perfect  is  this  in 
stinct,  that  once,  when  I  had  laid  them  on  the  leaves 
again,  and  one  accidentally  fell  on  its  side,  it  was  found 
with  the  rest  in  exactly  the  same  position  ten  minutes 
afterward.  They  are  not  callow  like  the  young  of  most 
birds,  but  more  perfectly  developed  and  precocious 
even  than  chickens.  The  remarkably  adult  yet  inno 
cent  expression  of  their  open  and  serene  eyes  is  very 
memorable.  All  intelligence  seems  reflected  in  them. 
They  suggest  not  merely  the  purity  of  infancy,  but  a 
wisdom  clarified  by  experience.  Such  an  eye  was  not 
born  when  the  bird  was,  but  is  coeval  with  the  sky  it 
reflects.  The  woods  do  not  yield  another  such  a  gem. 
The  traveller  does  not  often  look  into  such  a  limpid 
well.  The  ignorant  or  reckless  sportsman  often  shoots 
tbe  parent  at  such  a  time,  and  leaves  these  innocents  to 


252  WALDEN 

fall  a  prey  to  some  prowling  beast  or  bird,  or  gradually 
mingle  with  the  decaying  leaves  which  they  so  much 
resemble.  It  is  said  that  when  hatched  by  a  hen  they  will 
directly  disperse  on  some  alarm,  and  so  are  lost,  for  they 
never  hear  the  mother's  call  which  gathers  them  again. 
These  were  my  hens  and  chickens. 

It  is  remarkable  how  many  creatures  live  wild  and 
free  though  secret  in  the  woods,  and  still  sustain  them 
selves  in  the  neighborhood  of  towns,  suspected  by  hunt 
ers  only.  How  retired  the  otter  manages  to  live  here! 
He  grows  to  be  four  feet  long,  as  big  as  a  small  boy,  per 
haps  without  any  human  being  getting  a  glimpse  of  him. 
I  formerly  saw  the  raccoon  in  the  woods  behind  where 
my  house  is  built,  and  probably  still  heard  their  whin- 
nering  at  night.  Commonly  I  rested  an  hour  or  two  in 
the  shade  at  noon,  after  planting,  and  ate  my  lunch,  and 
read  a  little  by  a  spring  which  was  the  source  of  a  swamp 
and  of  a  brook,  oozing  from  under  Brister's  Hill,  half  a 
mile  from  my  field.  The  approach  to  this  was  through  a 
succession  of  descending  grassy  hollows,  full  of  young 
pitch  pines,  into  a  larger  wood  about  the  swamp.  There, 
in  a  very  secluded  and  shaded  spot,  under  a  spreading 
white  pine,  there  was  yet  a  clean,  firm  sward  to  sit  on. 
I  had  dug  out  the  spring  and  made  a  well  of  clear  gray 
water,  where  I  could  dip  up  a  pailful  without  roiling  it, 
and  thither  I  went  for  this  purpose  almost  every  day  in 
midsummer,  when  the  pond  was  warmest.  Thither,  too, 
the  woodcock  led  her  brood,  to  probe  the  mud  for  worms, 
flying  but  a  foot  above  them  down  the  bank,  while  they 
ran  in  a  troop  beneath;  but  at  last,  spying  me,  she  would 
leave  her  young  and  circle  round  and  round  me,  nearer 


BRUTE   NEIGHBORS  253 

and  nearer  till  within  four  or  five  feet,  pretending  broken 
wings  and  legs,  to  attract  my  attention,  and  get  off  her 
young,  who  would  already  have  taken  up  their  march, 
with  faint,  wiry  peep,  single  file  through  the  swamp,  as 
she  directed.  Or  I  heard  the  peep  of  the  young  when  I 
could  not  see  the  parent  bird.  There  too  the  turtle  doves 
sat  over  the  spring,  or  fluttered  from  bough  to  bough 
of  the  soft  white  pines  over  my  head ;  or  the  red  squir 
rel,  coursing  down  the  nearest  bough,  was  particularly 
familiar  and  inquisitive.  You  only  need  sit  still  long 
enough  in  some  attractive  spot  in  the  woods  that  all  its 
inhabitants  may  exhibit  themselves  to  you  by  turns.  ^ 
»  I  was  witness  to  events  of  a  less  peaceful  character. 
One  day  when  I  went  out  to  my  wood-pile,  or  rather  my 
pile  of  stumps,  I  observed  two  large  ants,  the  one  red, 
the  other  much  larger,  nearly  half  an  inch  long,  and 
black,  fiercely  contending  with  one  another.  Having 
once  got  hold  they  never  let  go,  but  struggled  and  wres 
tled  and  rolled  on  the  chips  incessantly.  Looking  far 
ther,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  the  chips  were  covered 
with  such  combatants,  that  it  was  not  a  duellum,  but  a 
bellnm,  a  war  between  two  races  of  ants,  the  red  always 
pitted  against  the  black,  and  frequently  two  red  ones  to 
one  black.  The  legions  of  these  Myrmidons  covered  all 
the  hills  and  vales  in  my  wood-yard,  and  the  ground  was 
already  strewn  with  the  dead  and  dying,  both  red  and 
black.  It  was  the  only  battle  which  I  have  ever  witnessed, 
the  only  battle-field  I  ever  trod  while  the  battle  was 
raging;  internecine  war;  the  red  republicans  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  black  imperialists  on  the  other.  On  every 
side  they  were  engaged  in  deadly  combat,  yet  without 


254  WALDEN 

any  noise  that  I  could  hear,  and  human  soldiers  never 
fought  so  resolutely.  I  watched  a  couple  that  were  fast 
locked  in  each  other's  embraces,  in  a  little  sunny  valley 
amid  the  chips,  now  at  noonday  prepared  to  fight  till 
the  sun  went  down,  or  life  went  out.  The  smaller  red 
champion  had  fastened  himself  like  a  vice  to  his  adver 
sary's  front,  and  through  all  the  tumblings  on  that  field 
never  for  an  instant  ceased  to  gnaw  at  one  of  his  feelers 
near  the  root,  having  already  caused  the  other  to  go 
by  the  board ;  while  the  stronger  black  one  dashed  him 
from  side  to  side,  and,  as  I  saw  on  looking  nearer,  had 
already  divested  him  of  several  of  his  members.  They 
fought  with  more  pertinacity  than  bulldogs.  Neither 
manifested  the  least  disposition  to  retreat.  It  was  evi 
dent  that  their  battle-cry  was  "  Conquer  or  die."  In 
the  meanwhile  there  came  along  a  single  red  ant  on  the 
hillside  of  this  valley,  evidently  full  of  excitement,  who 
either  had  despatched  his  foe,  or  had  not  yet  taken  part 
in  the  battle ;  probably  the  latter,  for  he  had  lost  none  of 
his  limbs;  whose  mother  had  charged  him  to  return 
with  his  shield  or  upon  it.  Or  perchance  he  was  some 
Achilles,  who  had  nourished  his  wrath  apart,  and  had 
now  come  to  avenge  or  rescue  his  Patroclus.  He  saw  this 
unequal  combat  from  afar,  —  for  the  blacks  were  nearly 
twice  the  size  of  the  red,  —  he  drew  near  with  rapid 
pace  till  he  stood  on  his  guard  within  half  an  inch  of  the 
combatants ;  then,  watching  his  opportunity,  he  sprang 
upon  the  black  warrior,  and  commenced  his  operations 
near  the  root  of  his  right  fore  leg,  leaving  the  foe  to  se 
lect  among  his  own  members;  and  so  there  were  three 
united  for  life,  as  if  a  new  kind  of  attraction  had  been 


BRUTE   NEIGHBORS  255 

invented  which  put  all  other  locks  and  cements  to  shame. 
I  should  not  have  wondered  by  this  time  to  find  that  they 
had  their  respective  musical  bands  stationed  on  some 
eminent  chip,  and  playing  their  national  airs  the  while, 
to  excite  the  slow  and  cheer  the  dying  combatants.  I 
was  myself  excited  somewhat  even  as  if  they  had  been 
men.  The  more  you  think  of  it,  the  less  the  difference. 
And  certainly  there  is  not  the  fight  recorded  in  Concord 
history,  at  least,  if  in  the  history  of  America,  that  will 
bear  a  moment's  comparison  with  this,  whether  for  the 
numbers  engaged  in  it,  or  for  the  patriotism  and  hero 
ism  displayed.  For  numbers  and  for  carnage  it  was  an 
Austerlitz  or  Dresden.  Concord  Fight!  Two  killed  on 
the  patriots'  side,  and  Luther  Blanchard  wounded! 
Why  here  every  ant  was  a  Buttrick,  —  "  Fire !  for  God's 
sake  fire ! "  —  and  thousands  shared  the  fate  of  Davis 
and  Hosmer.  There  was  not  one  hireling  there.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  it  was  a  principle  they  fought  for,  as  much 
as  our  ancestors,  and  not  to  avoid  a  three-penny  tax  on 
their  tea;  and  the  results  of  this  battle  will  be  as  impor 
tant  and  memorable  to  those  whom  it  concerns  as  those 
of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  at  least. 

I  took  up  the  chip  on  which  the  three  I  have  particu 
larly  described  were  struggling,  carried  it  into  my  house, 
and  placed  it  under  a  tumbler  on  my  window-sill,  in 
order  to  see  the  issue.  Holding  a  microscope  to  the  first- 
mentioned  red  ant,  I  saw  that,  though  he  was  assidu 
ously  gnawing  at  the  near  fore  leg  of  his  enemy,  having 
severed  his  remaining  feeler,  his  own  breast  was  all  torn 
away,  exposing  what  vitals  he  had  there  to  the  jaws 
of  the  black  warrior,  whose  breastplate  was  apparently 


256  WALDEN 

too  thick  for  him  to  pierce;  and  the  dark  carbuncles  of 
the  sufferer's  eyes  shone  with  ferocity  such  as  war  only 
could  excite.  They  struggled  half  an  hour  longer  under 
the  tumbler,  and  when  I  looked  again  the  black  soldier 
had  severed  the  heads  of  his  foes  from  their  bodies,  and 
the  still  living  heads  were  hanging  on  either  side  of  him 
like  ghastly  trophies  at  his  saddle-bow,  still  apparently 
as  firmly  fastened  as  ever,  and  he  was  endeavoring  with 
feeble  struggles,  being  without  feelers  and  with  only  the 
remnant  of  a  leg,  and  I  know  not  how  many  other  wounds, 
to  divest  himself  of  them ;  which  at  length,  after  half  an 
hour  more,  he  accomplished.  I  raised  the  glass,  and  he 
went  off  over  the  window-sill  in  that  crippled  state. 
Whether  he  finally  survived  that  combat,  and  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  days  in  some  Hotel  des  Invalides,J[  do 
not  know ;  but  I  thought  that  his  industry  would  not  be 
worth  much  thereafter.  I  never  learned  which  party  was 
victorious,  nor  the  cause  of  the  war;  but  I  felt  for  the 
rest  of  that  day  as  if  I  had  had  my  feelings  excited  and 
harrowed  by  witnessing  the  struggle,  the  ferocity  and 
carnage,  of  a  human  battle  before  my  door. 

Kirby  and  Spence  tell  us  that  the  battles  of  ants  have 
long  been  celebrated  and  the  date  of  them  recorded, 
though  they  say  that  Huber  is  the  only  modern  author 
who  appears  to  have  witnessed  them.  "  ^Eneas  Sylvius," 
say  they,  "  after  giving  a  very  circumstantial  account  of 
one  contested  with  great  obstinacy  by  a  great  and  small 
species  on  the  trunk  of  a  pear  tree,"  adds  that  "'this 
action  was  fought  in  the  pontificate  of  Eugenius  the 
Fourth,  in  the  presence  of  Nicholas  Pistoriensis,  .an 
eminent  lawyer,  who  related  the  whole  history  of  the 


BRUTE  NEIGHBORS  257 

battle  with  the  greatest  fidelity.'  A  similar  engagement 
between  great  and  small  ants  is  recorded  by  Olaus 
Magnus,  in  which  the  small  ones,  being  victorious,  are 
said  to  have  buried  the  bodies  of  their  own  soldiers,  but 
left  those  of  their  giant  enemies  a  prey  to  the  birds.  This 
event  happened  previous  to  the  expulsion  of  the  tyrant 
Christiern  the  Second  from  Sweden."  The  battle  which 
I  witnessed  took  place  in  the  Presidency  of  Polk,  five 
years  before  the  passage  of  Webster's  Fugitive-Slave 
Bill. 

Many  a  village  Bose,  fit  only  to  course  a  mud-turtle 
in  a  victualling  cellar,  sported  his  heavy  quarters  in  the 
woods,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  master,  and  in 
effectually  smelled  at  old  fox  burrows  and  woodchucks* 
holes;  led  perchance  by  some  slight  cur  which  nimbly 
threaded  the  wood,  and  might  still  inspire  a  natural  ter 
ror  in  its  denizens;  —  now  far  behind  his  guide,  barking 
like  a  canine  bull  toward  some  small  squirrel  which  had 
treed  itself  for  scrutiny,  then,  cantering  off,  bending  the 
bushes  with  his  weight,  imagining  that  he  is  on  the  track 
of  some  stray  member  of  the  jerbilla  family.  Once  I  was 
surprised  to  see  a  cat  walking  along  the  stony  shore  of  the 
pond,  for  they  rarely  wander  so  far  from  home.  The  sur 
prise  was  mutual.  Nevertheless  the  most  domestic  cat, 
which  has  lain  on  a  rug  all  her  days,  appears  quite  at 
home  in  the  woods,  and,  by  her  sly  and  stealthy  be 
havior,  proves  herself  more  native  there  than  the  regular 
inhabitants.  Once,  when  berrying,  I  met  with  a  cat  with 
young  kittens  in  the  woods,  quite  wild,  and  they  all,  like 
their  mother,  had  their  backs  up  and  were  fiercely  spit 
ting  at  me.  A  few  years  before  I  lived  in  the  woods  there 


258  WALDEN 

was  what  was  called  a  "  winged  cat "  in  one  of  the  farm 
houses  in  Lincoln  nearest  the  pond,  Mr.  Gilian  Baker's. 
When  I  called  to  see  her  in  June,  1842,  she  was  gone 
a-hunting  in  the  woods,  as  was  her  wont  (I  am  not  sure 
whether  it  was  a  male  or  female,  and  so  use  the  more 
common  pronoun),  but  her  mistress  told  me  that  she 
came  into  the  neighborhood  a  little  more  than  a  year 
before,  in  April,  and  was  finally  taken  into  their  house; 
that  she  was  of  a  dark  brownish-gray  color,  with  a  white 
spot  on  her  throat,  and  white  feet,  and  had  a  large  bushy 
tail  like  a  fox;  that  in  the  winter  the  fur  grew  thick  and 
flatted  out  along  her  sides,  forming  strips  ten  or  twelve 
inches  long  by  two  and  a  half  wide,  and  under  her  chin 
like  a  muff,  the  upper  side  loose,  the  under  matted  like 
felt,  and  in  the  spring  these  appendages  dropped  off. 
They  gave  me  a  pair  of  her  "  wings,"  which  I  keep  still. 
There  is  no  appearance  of  a  membrane  about  them. 
Some  thought  it  was  part  flying  squirrel  or  some  other 
wild  animal,  which  is  not  impossible,  for,  according  to 
naturalists,  prolific  hybrids  have  been  produced  by  the 
union  of  the  marten  and  domestic  cat.  This  would  have 
been  the  right  kind  of  cat  for  me  to  keep,  if  I  had  kept 
any;  for  why  should  not  a  ptfet's  cat  be  winged  as  well 
as  his  horse? 

In  the  fall  the  loon  (Colymbus  glacialis)  came,  as  usual, 
to  moult  and  bathe  in  the  pond,  making  the  woods  ring 
with  his  wild  laughter  before  I  had  risen.  At  rumor  of 
his  arrival  all  the  Mill-dam  sportsmen  are  on  the  alert, 
in  gigs  and  on  foot,  two  by  two  and  three  by  three,  with 
patent  rifles  and  conical  balls  and  spy-glasses.  They 
come  rustling  through  the  woods  like  autumn  leaves,  at 


BRUTE   NEIGHBORS  259 

least  ten  men  to  one  loon.  Some  station  themselves  on 
this  side  of  the  pond,  some  on  that,  for  the  poor  bird 
cannot  be  omnipresent ;  if  he  dive  here  he  must  come  up 
there.  But  now  the  kind  October  wind  rises,  rustling 
the  leaves  and  rippling  the  surface  of  the.  water,  so  that 
no  loon  can  be  heard  or  seen,  though  his  foes  sweep  the 
pond  with  spy-glasses,  and  make  the  woods  resound  with 
their  discharges.  The  waves  generously  rise  and  dash 
angrily,  taking  sides  with  all  water-fowl,  and  our  sports 
men  must  beat  a  retreat  to  town  and  shop  and  unfinished 
jobs.  But  they  were  too  often  successful.  When  I  went 
to  get  a  pail  of  water  early  in  the  morning  I  frequently 
saw  this  stately  bird  sailing  out  of  my  cove  within  a  few 
rods.  If  I  endeavored  to  overtake  him  in  a  boat,  in  order 
to  see  how  he  would  manoeuvre,  he  would  dive  and  be 
completely  lost,  so  that  I  did  not  discover  him  again, 
sometimes,  till  the  latter  part  of  the  day.  But  I  was 
more  than  a  match  for  him  on  the  surface.  He  com 
monly  went  off  in  a  rain. 

As  I  was  paddling  along  the  north  shore  one  very 
calm  October  afternoon,  for  such  days  especially  they 
settle  on  to  the  lakes,  like  the  milkweed  down,  having 
looked  in  vain  over  the  pond  for  a  loon,  suddenly  one, 
sailing  out  from  the  shore  toward  the  middle  a  few  rods 
in  front  of  me,  set  up  his  wild  laugh  and  betrayed  him 
self.  I  pursued  with  a  paddle  and  he  dived,  but  when 
he  came  up  I  was  nearer  than  before.  He  dived  again, 
but  I  miscalculated  the  direction  he  would  take,  and  we 
were  fifty  rods  apart  when  he  came  to  the  surface  this 
time,  for  I  had  helped  to  widen  the  interval;  and  again 
he  laughed  long  and  loud,  and  with  more  reason  than 


260  WALDEN 

before.  He  manoeuvred  so  cunningly  that  I  could  not 
get  within  half  a  dozen  rods  of  him.  Each  time,  when  he 
came  to  the  surface,  turning  his  head  this  way  and  that, 
he  coolly  surveyed  the  water  and  the  land,  and  apparently 
chose  his  course  so  that  he  might  come  up  where  there 
was  the  widest  expanse  of  water  and  at  the  greatest  dis 
tance  from  the  boat.  It  was  surprising  how  quickly  he 
made  up  his  mind  and  put  his  resolve  into  execution. 
He  led  me  at  once  to  the  widest  part  of  the  pond,  and 
could  not  be  driven  from  it.  While  he  was  thinking  one 
thing  in  his  brain,  I  was  endeavoring  to  divine  his  thought 
in  mine.  It  was  a  pretty  game,  played  on  the  smooth 
surface  of  the  pond,  a  man  against  a  loon.  Suddenly 
your  adversary's  checker  disappears  beneath  the  board, 
and  the  problem  is  to  place  yours  nearest  to  where  his 
will  appear  again.  Sometimes  he  would  come  up  unex 
pectedly  on  the  opposite  side  of  me,  having  apparently 
passed  directly  under  the  boat.  So  long-winded  was  he 
and  so  unweariable,  that  when  he  had  swum  farthest  he 
would  immediately  plunge  again,  nevertheless;  and  then 
no  wit  could  divine  where  in  the  deep  pond,  beneath  the 
smooth  surface,  he  might  be  speeding  his  way  like  a  fish, 
for  he  had  time  and  ability  to  visit  the  bottom  of  the 
pond  in  its  deepest  part.  It  is  said  that  loons  have  been 
caught  in  the  New  York  lakes  eighty  feet  beneath  the 
surface,  with  hooks  set  for  trout,  —  though  Walden  is 
deeper  than  that.  How  surprised  must  the  fishes  be  to 
see  this  ungainly  visitor  from  another  sphere  speeding 
his  way  amid  their  schools!  Yet  he  appeared  to  know 
his  course  as  surely  under  water  as  on  the  surface,  and 
swam  much  faster  there.  Once  or  twice  I  saw  a  ripple 


BRUTE  NEIGHBORS  261 

where  he  approached  the  surface,  just  put  his  head  out 
to  reconnoitre,  and  instantly  dived  again.  I  found 
that  it  was  as  well  for  me  to  rest  on  my  oars  and  wait  his 
reappearing  as  to  endeavor  to  calculate  where  he  would 
rise ;  for  again  and  again,  when  I  was  straining  my  eyes 
over  the  surface  one  way,  I  would  suddenly  be  startled 
by  his  unearthly  laugh  behind  me.  But  why,  after 
displaying  so  much  cunning,  did  he  invariably  betray 
himself  the  moment  he  came  up  by  that  loud  laugh  ? 
Did  not  his  white  breast  enough  betray  him  ?  He  was 
indeed  a  silly  loon,  I  thought.  I  could  commonly  hear 
the  plash  of  the  water  when  he  came  up,  and  so  also 
detected  him.  But  after  an  hour  he  seemed  as  fresh  as 
ever,  dived  as  willingly,  and  swam  yet  farther  than  at 
first.  It  was  surprising  to  see  how  serenely  he  sailed  off 
with  unruffled  breast  when  he  came  to  the  surface,  do 
ing  all  the  work  with  his  webbed  feet  beneath.  His  usual 
note  was  this  demoniac  laughter,  yet  somewhat  like  that 
of  a  water-fowl;  but  occasionally,  when  he  had  balked 
me  most  successfully  and  come  up  a  long  way  off,  he 
uttered  a  long-drawn  unearthly  howl,  probably  more 
like  that  of  a  wolf  than  any  bird;  as  when  a  beast  puts 
his  muzzle  to  the  ground  and  deliberately  howls.  This 
was  his  looning,  —  perhaps  the  wildest  sound  that  is 
ever  heard  here,  making  the  woods  ring  far  and  wide. 
I  concluded  that  he  laughed  in  derision  of  my  efforts, 
confident  of  his  own  resources.  Though  the  sky  was 
by  this  time  overcast,  the  pond  was  so  smooth  that  I 
could  see  where  he  broke  the  surface  when  I  did  not  hear 
him.  His  white  breast,  the  stillness  of  the  air,  and  the 
smoothness  of  the  water  were  all  against  him.  At  length, 


262  WALDEN 

having  come  up  fifty  rods  off,  he  uttered  one  of  those 
prolonged  howls,  as  if  calling  on  the  god  of  loons  to  aid 
him,  and  immediately  there  came  a  wind  from  the  east 
and  rippled  the  surface,  and  filled  the  whole  air  with 
misty  rain,  and  I  was  impressed  as  if  it  were  the  prayer 
of  the  loon  answered,  and  his  god  was  angry  with  me; 
and  so  I  left  him  disappearing  far  away  on  the  tumultu 
ous  surface. 

For  hours,  in  fall  days,  I  watched  the  ducks  cunningly 
tack  and  veer  and  hold  the  middle  of  the  pond,  far  from 
the  sportsman;  tricks  which  they  will  have  less  need  to 
practise  in  Louisiana  bayous.  When  compelled  to  rise 
they  would  sometimes  circle  round  and  round  and  over 
the  pond  at  a  considerable  height,  from  which  they  could 
easily  see  to  other  ponds  and  the  river,  like  black  motes 
in  the  sky;  and,  when  I  thought  they  had  gone  off 
thither  long  since,  they  would  settle  down  by  a  slanting 
flight  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on  to  a  distant  part  which 
was  left  free ;  but  what  beside  safety  they  got  by  sailing 
in  the  middle  of  Walden  I  do  not  know,  unless  they  love 
its  water  for  the  same  reason  that  I  do. 


XIII 
HOUSE-WARMING 

IN  October  I  went  a-graping  to  the  river  meadows,  and 
loaded  myself  with  clusters  more  precious  for  their 
beauty  and  fragrance  than  for  food.  There,  too,  I  ad 
mired,  though  I  did  not  gather,  the  cranberries,  small 
waxen  gems,  pendants  of  the  meadow  grass,  pearly  and 
red,  which  the  farmer  plucks  with  an  ugly  rake,  leaving 
the  smooth  meadow  in  a  snarl,  heedlessly  measuring 
them  by  the  bushel  and  the  dollar  only,  and  sells  the 
spoils  of  the  meads  to  Boston  and  New  York ;  destined 
to  be  jammed,  to  satisfy  the  tastes  of  lovers  of  Nature 
there.  So  butchers  rake  the  tongues  of  bison  out  of  the 
prairie  grass,  regardless  of  the  torn  and  drooping  plant. 
The  barberry's  brilliant  fruit  was  likewise  food  for  my 
eyes  merely;  but  I  collected  a  small  store  of  wild  apples 
for  coddling,  which  the  proprietor  and  travellers  had 
overlooked.  When  chestnuts  were  ripe  I  laid  up  half 
a  bushel  for  winter.  It  was  very  exciting  at  that  season 
to  roam  the  then  boundless  chestnut  woods  of  Lincoln, 
—  they  now  sleep  their  long  sleep  under  the  railroad, — • 
with  a  bag  on  my  shoulder,  and  a  stick  to  open  burs 
with  in  my  hand,  for  I  did  not  always  wait  for  the  frost, 
amid  the  rustling  of  leaves  and  the  loud  reproofs  of  the 
red  squirrels  and  the  jays,  whose  half -consumed  nuts  I 
sometimes  stole,  for  the  burs  which  they  had  selected 


264  WALDEN 

were  sure  to  contain  sound  ones.  Occasionally  I  climbed 
and  shook  the  trees.  They  grew  also  behind  my  house, 
and  one  large  tree,  which  almost  overshadowed  it,  was, 
when  in  flower,  a  bouquet  which  scented  the  whole 
neighborhood,  but  the  squirrels  and  the  jays  got  most 
I  of  its  fruit ;  the  last  coming  in  flocks  early  in  the  morn 
ing  and  picking  the  nuts  out  of  the  burs  before  they  fell. 
1 1  relinquished  these  trees  to  them  and  visited  the  more 
distant  woods  composed  wholly  of  chestnut.  These 
nuts,  as  far  as  they  went,  were  a  good  substitute  for 
bread.  Many  other  substitutes  might,  perhaps,  be  found. 
Digging  one  day  for  fishworms,  I  discovered  the  ground 
nut  (Apios  tuberosa)  on  its  string,  the  potato  of  the  abo 
rigines,  a  sort  of  fabulous  fruit,  which  I  had  begun  to 
doubt  if  I  had  ever  dug  and  eaten  in  childhood,  as  I  had 
told,  and  had  not  dreamed  it.  I  had  often  since  seen  its 
crimpled  red  velvety  blossom  supported  by  the  stems  of 
other  plants  without  knowing  it  to  be  the  same.  Culti 
vation  has  well-nigh  exterminated  it.  It  has  a  sweetish 
taste,  much  like  that  of  a  frost-bitten  potato,  and  I  found 
it  better  boiled  than  roasted.  This  tuber  seemed  like  a 
faint  promise  of  Nature  to  rear  her  own  children  and 
feed  them  simply  here  at  some  future  period.  In  these 
days  of  fatted  cattle  and  waving  grain-fields  this  humble 
root,  which  was  once  the  totem  of  an  Indian  tribe,  is 
quite  forgotten,  or  known  only  by  its  flowering  vine ;  but 
let  wild  Nature  reign  here  once  more,  and  the  tender  and 
luxurious  English  grains  will  probably  disappear  before 
a  myriad  of  foes,  and  without  the  care  of  man  the  crow 
may  carry  back  even  the  last  seed  of  corn  to  the  great 
cornfield  of  the  Indian's  God  in  the  southwest,  whence 


HOUSE-WARMING  265 

he  is  said  to  have  brought  it;  but  the  now  almost  exter 
minated  ground-nut  will  perhaps  revive  and  flourish  in 
spite  of  frosts  and  wildness,  prove  itself  indigenous,  and 
resume  its  ancient  importance  and  dignity  as  the  diet  of 
the  hunter  tribe.  Some  Indian  Ceres  or  Minerva  must 
have  been  the  inventor  and  bestower  of  it;  and  when 
the  reign  of  poetry  commences  here,  its  leaves  and  string 
of  nuts  may  be  represented  on  our  works  of  art. 
/  Already,  by  the  first  of  September,  I  had  seen  two 
'or  three  small  maples  turned  scarlet  across  the  pond, 
beneath  where  the  white  stems  of  three  aspens  diverged, 
at  the  point  of  a  promontory,  next  the  water.  Ah,  many 
a  tale  their  color  told!  And  gradually  from  week  to 
week  the  character  of  each  tree  came  out,  and  it  ad 
mired  itself  reflected  in  the  smooth  mirror  of  the  lake. 
Each  morning  the  manager  of  this  gallery  substituted 
some  new  picture,  distinguished  by  more  brilliant  or 
harmonious  coloring,  for  the  old  upon  the  walls. 

The  wasps  came  by  thousands  to  my  lodge  in  Octo 
ber,  as  to  winter  quarters,  and  settled  on  my  windows 
within  and  on  the  walls  overhead,  sometimes  deterring 
visitors  from  entering.  Each  morning,  when  they  were 
numbed  with  cold,  I  swept  some  of  them  out,  but  I  did 
not  trouble  myself  much  to  get  rid  of  them ;  I  even  felt 
complimented  by  their  regarding  my  house  as  a  desirable 
shelter.  They  never  molested  me  seriously,  though  they 
bedded  .with  me;  and  they  gradually  disappeared,  into 
what  crevices  I  do  not  know,  avoiding  winter  and  un 
speakable  cold. 

Like  the  wasps,  before  I  finally  went  into  winter 
quarters  in  November,  I  used  to  resort  to  the  north- 


266  WALDEN 

east  side  of  Walden,  which  the  sun,  reflected  from  the 
pitch  pine  woods  and  the  stony  shore,  made  the  fireside 
of  the  pond;  it  is  so  much  pleasanter  and  wholesomer 
to  be  warmed  by  the  sun  while  you  can  be,  than  by  an 
artificial  fire.  I  thus  warmed  myself  by  the  still  glowing 
embers  which  the  summer,  like  a  departed  hunter,  had 
left. 

When  I  came  to  build  my  chimney  I  studied  masonry. 
My  bricks,  being  second-hand  ones,  required  to  be 
cleaned  with  a  trowel,  so  that  I  learned  more  than 
usual  of  the  qualities  of  bricks  and  trowels.  The  mortar 
on  them  was  fifty  years  old,  and  was  said  to  be  still 
growing  harder;  but  this  is  one  of  those  sayings  which 
men  love  to  repeat  whether  they  are  true  or  not.  Such 
sayings  themselves  grow  harder  and  adhere  more 
firmly  with  age,  and  it  would  take  many  blows  with 
a  trowel  to  clean  an  old  wiseacre  of  them.  Many  of 
the  villages  of  Mesopotamia  are  built  of  second-hand 
bricks  of  a  very  good  quality,  obtained  from  the  ruins  of 
Babylon,  and  the  cement  on  them  is  older  and  probably 
harder  still.  However  that  may  be,  I  was  struck  by 
the  peculiar  toughness  of  the  steel  which  bore  so  many 
violent  blows  without  being  worn  out.  As  my  bricks 
had  been  in  a  chimney  before,  though  I  did  not  read 
the  name  of  Nebuchadnezzar  on  them,  I  picked  out 
as  many  fireplace  bricks  as  I  could  find,  to  save  work 
and  waste,  and  I  filled  the  spaces  between  the  bricks 
about  the  fireplace  with  stones  from  the  pond  shore,  aiid 
also  made  my  mortar  with  the  white  sand  from  the 
same  place.  I  lingered  most  about  the  fireplace,  as  the 


HOUSE-WARMING  267 

most  vital  part  of  the  house.  Indeed,  I  worked  so  de 
liberately,  that  though  I  commenced  at  the  ground  in  the 
morning,  a  course  of  bricks  raised  a  few  inches  above 
the  floor  served  for  my  pillow  at  night ;  yet  I  did  not  get 
a  stiff  neck  for  it  that  I  remember;  my  stiff  neck  is  of 
older  date.  I  took  a  poet  to  board  for  a  fortnight  about 
those  times,  which  caused  me  to  be  put  to  it  for  room. 
He  brought  his  own  knife,  though  I  had  two,  and  we 
used  to  scour  them  by  thrusting  them  into  the  earth.  He 
shared  with  me  the  labors  of  cooking.  I  was  pleased  to 
see  my  work  rising  so  square  and  solid  by  degrees,  and 
\  reflected,  that,  if  it  proceeded  slowly,  it  was  calculated 
to  endure  a  long  time.  The  chimney  is  to  some  extent 
an  independent  structure,  standing  on  the  ground,  and 
rising  through  the  house  to  the  heavens ;  even  after  the 
house  is  burned  it  still  stands  sometimes,  and  its  im 
portance  and  independence  are  apparent.  This  was 
toward  the  end  of  summer.  It  was  now  November. 

The  north  wind  had  already  begun  to  cool  the  pond, 
though  it  took  many  weeks  of  steady  blowing  to  accom 
plish  it,  it  is  so  deep.  When  I  began  to  have  a  fire  at 
evening,  before  I  plastered  my  house,  the  chimney  car 
ried  smoke  particularly  well,  because  of  the  numerous 
chinks  between  the  boards.  Yet  I  passed  some  cheerful 
evenings  in  that  cool  and  airy  apartment,  surrounded 
by  the  rough  brown  boards  full  of  knots,  and  rafters 
with  the  bark  on  high  overhead.  My  house  never  pleased 
my  eye  so  much  after  it  was  plastered,  though  I  was 
obliged  to  confess  that  it  was  more  comfortable.  Should 
not  every  apartment  in  which  man  dwells  be  lofty 


268  WALDEN 

enough  to  create  some  obscurity  overhead,  where  flick 
ering  shadows  may  play  at  evening  about  the  rafters? 
These  forms  are  more  agreeable  to  the  fancy  and  imagi 
nation  than  fresco  paintings  or  other  the  most  expensive 
furniture.  I  now  first  began  to  inhabit  my  house,  I  may 
say,  when  I  began  to  use  it  for  warmth  as  well  as  shelter. 
I  had  got  a  couple  of  old  fire-dogs  to  keep  the  wood 
from  the  hearth,  and  it  did  me  good  to  see  the  soot 
form  on  the  back  of  the  chimney  which  I  had  built,  and 
I  poked  the  fire  with  more  right  and  more  satisfaction 
than  usual.  My  dwelling  was  small,  and  I  could  hardly 
entertain  an  echo  in  it;  but  it  seemed  larger  for  being 
a  single  apartment  and  remote  from  neighbors.  All 
the  attractions  of  a  house  were  concentrated  in  one 
room;  it  was  kitchen,  chamber,  parlor,  and  keeping- 
room;  and  whatever  satisfaction  parent  or  child,  mas 
ter  or  servant,  derive  from  living  in  a  house,  I  enjoyed 
it  all.  Cato  says,  the  master  of  a  family  (patremfa- 
milias)  must  have  in  his  rustic  villa  "cellam  oleariam, 
vinariam,  dolia  multa,  uti  lubeat  caritatem  expectare, 
et  rei,  et  virtuti,  et  gloriae  erit,"  that  is,  "an  oil  and 
wine  cellar,  many  casks,  so  that  it  may  be  pleasant  to 
expect  hard  times;  it  will  be  for  his  advantage,  and 
virtue,  and  glory."  I  had  in  my  cellar  a  firkin  of  potatoes, 
about  two  quarts  of  peas  with  the  weevil  in  them,  and 
on  my  shelf  a  little  rice,  a  jug  of  molasses,  and  of  rye 
and  Indian  meal  a  peck  each. 

I  sometimes  dream  of  a  larger  and  more  populous 
house,  standing  in  a  golden  age,  of  enduring  materials, 
and  without  gingerbread  work,  which  shall  still  consist 
of  only  one  room,  a  vast,  rude,  substantial,  primitive 


HOUSE-WARMING  269 

hall,  without  ceiling  or  plastering,  with  bare  rafters  and 
purlins  supporting  a  sort  of  lower  heaven  over  one's 
head,  —  useful  to  keep  off  rain  and  snow,  where  the 
king  and  queen  posts  stand  out  to  receive  your  homage, 
when  you  have  done  reverence  to  the  prostrate  Saturn 
of  an  older  dynasty  on  stepping  over  the  sill ;  a  cavern 
ous  house,  wherein  you  must  reach  up  a  torch  upon  a 
pole  to  see  the  roof;  where  some  may  live  in  the  fire 
place,  some  in  the  recess  of  a  window,  and  some  on  set 
tles,  some  at  one  end  of  the  hall,  some  at  another,  and 
some  aloft  on  rafters  with  the  spiders,  if  they  choose; 
a  house  which  you  have  got  into  when  you  have  opened 
the  outside  door,  and  the  ceremony  is  over;  where  the 
weary  traveller  may  wash,  and  eat,  and  converse,  and 
sleep,  without  further  journey;  such  a  shelter  as  you 
would  be  glad  to  reach  in  a  tempestuous  night,  con 
taining  all  the  essentials  of  a  house,  and  nothing  for 
house-keeping;  where  you  can  see  all  the  treasures  of 
the  house  at  one  view,  and  everything  hangs  upon  its 
peg  that  a  man  should  use;  at  once  kitchen,  pantry, 
parlor,  chamber,  storehouse,  and  garret;  where  you 
can  see  so  necessary  a  thing  as  a  barrel  or  a  ladder,  so 
convenient  a  thing  as  a  cupboard,  and  hear  the  pot 
boil,  and  pay  your  respects  to  the  fire  that  cooks  your 
dinner,  and  the  oven  that  bakes  your  bread,  and  the 
necessary  furniture  and  utensils  are  the  chief  ornaments ; 
where  the  washing  is  not  put  out,  nor  the  fire,  nor  the 
mistress,  and  perhaps  you  are  sometimes  requested 
to  move  from  off  the  trap-door,  when  the  cook  would 
descend  into  the  cellar,  and  so  learn  whether  the  ground 
is  solid  or  hollow  beneath  you  without  stamping.  A 


270  WALDEN 

house  whose  inside  is  as  open  and  manifest  as  a  bird's 
nest,  and  you  cannot  go  in  at  the  front  door  and  out 
at  the  back  without  seeing  some  of  its  inhabitants ;  where 
to  be  a  guest  is  to  be  presented  with  the  freedom  of  the 
house,  and  not  to  be  carefully  excluded  from  seven 
eighths  of  it,  shut  up  in  a  particular  cell,  and  told  to  make 
yourself  at  home  there,  —  in  solitary  confinement. 
Nowadays  the  host  does  not  admit  you  to  his  hearth, 
but  has  got  the  mason  to  build  one  for  yourself  some 
where  in  his  alley,  and  hospitality  is  the  art  of  keeping 
you  at  the  greatest  distance.  There  is  as  much  secrecy 
about  the  cooking  as  if  he  had  a  design  to  poison  you. 
I  am  aware  that  I  have  been  on  many  a  man's  premises, 
and  might  have  been  legally  ordered  off,  but  I  am  not 
aware  that  I  have  been  in  many  men's  houses.  I  might 
visit  in  my  old  clothes  a  king  and  queen  who  lived  sim 
ply  in  such  a  house  as  I  have  described,  if  I  were  going 
their  way;  but  backing  out  of  a  modern  palace  will  be 
all  that  I  shall  desire  to  learn,  if  ever  I  am  caught  in  one. 
It  would  seem  as  if  the  very  language  of  our  parlors 
would  lose  all  its  nerve  and  degenerate  into  palaver 
wholly,  our  lives  pass  at  such  remoteness  from  its  sym 
bols,  and  its  metaphors  and  tropes  are  necessarily  so 
far  fetched,  through  slides  and  dumb-waiters,  as  it  were; 
in  other  words,  the  parlor  is  so  far  from  the  kitchen  and 
workshop.  The  dinner  even  is  only  the  parable  of  a 
dinner,  commonly.  As  if  only  the  savage  dwelt  near 
enough  to  Nature  and  Truth  to  borrow  a  trope  from 
them.  How  can  the  scholar,  who  dwells  away  in  the 
North  West  Territory  or  the  Isle  of  Man,  tell  what  is 
parliamentary  in  the  kitchen  ? 


HOUSE-WARMING  271 


However,  only  one  or  two  of  my  guests  were  ever  bold 
enough  to  stay  and  eat  a  hasty-pudding  with  me;  but 
when  they  saw  that  crisis  approaching  they  beat  a  hasty 
retreat  rather,  as  if  it  would  shake  the  house  to  its  foun 
dations.  Nevertheless,  it  stood  through  a  great  many 
hasty-puddings . 

I  did  not  plaster  till  it  was  freezing  weather.  I  brought 
over  some  whiter  and  cleaner  sand  for  this  purpose  from 
the  opposite  shore  of  the  pond  in  a  boat,  a  sort  of  con 
veyance  which  would  have  tempted  me  to  go  much  far 
ther  if  necessary.  My  house  had  in  the  meanwhile  been 
shingled  down  to  the  ground  on  every  side.  In  lathing  I 
was  pleased  to  be  able  to  send  home  each  nail  with  a 
single  blow  of  the  hammer,  and  it  was  my  ambition  to 
transfer  the  plaster  from  the  board  to  the  wall  neatly  and 
rapidly.  I  remembered  the  story  of  a  conceited  fellow, 
who,  in  fine  clothes,  was  wont  to  lounge  about  the  village 
once,  giving  advice  to  workmen.  Venturing  one  day  to 
substitute  deeds  for  words,  he  turned  up  his  cuffs,  seized 
a  plasterer's  board,  and  having  loaded  his  trowel  with 
out  mishap,  with  a  complacent  look  toward  the  lathing 
overhead,  made  a  bold  gesture  thitherward ;  and  straight 
way,  to  his  complete  discomfiture,  received  the  whole 
contents  in  his  ruffled  bosom.  I  admired  anew  the  econ 
omy  and  convenience  of  plastering,  which  so  effectually 
shuts  out  the  cold  and  takes  a  handsome  finish,  and  I 
learned  the  various  casualties  to  which  the  plasterer  is 
liable.  I  was  surprised  to  see  how  thirsty  the  bricks  were 
which  drank  up  all  the  moisture  in  my  plaster  before  I 
had  smoothed  it,  and  how  many  pailfuls  of  water  it  takes 
to  christen  a  new  hearth.  I  had  the  previous  winter  made 


272  WALDEN 

a  small  quantity  of  lime  by  burning  the  shells  of  the 
Unio  fluviatilis,  which  our  river  affords,  for  the  sake  of 
the  experiment;  so  that  I  knew  where  my  materials 
came  from.  I  might  have  got  good  limestone  within  a 
mile  or  two  and  burned  it  myself,  if  I  had  cared  to 
do  so. 

The  pond  had  in  the  meanwhile  skimmed  over  in  the 
shadiest  and  shallowest  coves,  some  days  or  even  weeks 
before  the  general  freezing.  The  first  ice  is  especially 
interesting  and  perfect,  being  hard,  dark,  and  trans 
parent,  and  affords  the  best  opportunity  that  ever  offers 
for  examining  the  bottom  where  it  is  shallow;  for  you 
can  lie  at  your  length  on  ice  only  an  inch  thick,  like  a 
skater  insect  on  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  study  the 
bottom  at  your  leisure,  only  two  or  three  inches  distant, 
like  a  picture  behind  a  glass,  and  the  water  is  necessarily 
always  smooth  then.  There  are  many  furrows  in  the  sand 
where  some  creature  has  travelled  about  and  doubled 
on  its  tracks ;  and,  for  wrecks,  it  is  strewn  with  the  cases 
of  caddis-worms  made  of  minute  grains  of  white  quartz. 
Perhaps  these  have  creased  it,  for  you  find  some  of  their 
cases  in  the  furrows,  though  they  are  deep  and  broad  for 
them  to  make.  But  the  ice  itself  is  the  object  of  most  in 
terest,  though  you  must  improve  the  earliest  opportunity 
to  study  it.  If  you  examine  it  closely  the  morning  after 
it  freezes,  you  find  that  the  greater  part  of  the  bubbles, 
which  at  first  appeared  to  be  within  it,  are  against  its 
under  surface,  and  that  more  are  continually  rising  from 
the  bottom;  while  the  ice  is  as  yet  comparatively  solid 
and  dark,  that  is,  you  see  the  water  through  it.  These 


HOUSE-WARMING  273 

bubbles  are  from  an  eightieth  to  an  eighth  of  an  inch  in 
diameter,  very  clear  and  beautiful,  and  you  see  your  face 
reflected  in  them  through  the  ice.  There  may  be  thirty 
or  forty  of  them  to  a  square  inch.  There  are  also  already 
within  the  ice  narrow  oblong  perpendicular  bubbles 
about  half  an  inch  long,  sharp  cones  with  the  apex  up 
ward  ;  or  oftener,  if  the  ice  is  quite  fresh,  minute  spher 
ical  bubbles  one  directly  above  another,  like  a  string  of 
beads.  But  these  within  the  ice  are  not  so  numerous  nor 
obvious  as  those  beneath.  I  sometimes  used  to  cast  on 
stones  to  try  the  strength  of  the  ice,  and  those  which 
broke  through  carried  in  air  with  them,  which  formed 
very  large  and  conspicuous  white  bubbles  beneath.  One 
day  when  I  came  to  the  same  place  forty-eight  hours 
afterward,  I  found  that  those  large  bubbles  were  still 
perfect,  though  an  inch  more  of  ice  had  formed,  as  I 
could  see  distinctly  by  the  seam  in  the  edge  of  a  cake. 
But  as  the  last  two  days  had  been  very  warm,  like  an 
Indian  summer,  the  ice  was  not  now  transparent,  show 
ing  the  dark  green  color  of  the  water,  and  the  bottom, 
but  opaque  and  whitish  or  gray,  and  though  twice  as 
thick  was  hardly  stronger  than  before,  for  the  air  bubbles 
had  greatly  expanded  under  this  heat  and  run  together, 
and  lost  their  regularity;  they  were  no  longer  one  di 
rectly  over  another,  but  often  like  silvery  coins  poured 
from  a  bag,  one  overlapping  another,  or  in  thin  flakes, 
as  if  occupying  slight  cleavages.  The  beauty  of  the  ice 
was  gone,  and  it  was  too  late  to  study  the  bottom.  Being 
curious  to  know  what  position  my  great  bubbles  occu 
pied  with  regard  to  the  new  ice,  I  broke  out  a  cake 
containing  a  middling  sized  one,  and  turned  it  bottom 


274  WALDEN 

upward.  The  new  ice  had  formed  around  and  under  the 
bubble,  so  that  it  was  included  between  the  two  ices.  It 
was  wholly  in  the  lower  ice,  but  close  against  the  upper, 
and  was  flattish,  or  perhaps  slightly  lenticular,  with  a 
rounded  edge,  a  quarter  of  an  inch  deep  by  four  inches 
in  diameter;  and  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  directly 
under  the  bubble  the  ice  was  melted  with  great  regu 
larity  in  the  form  of  a  saucer  reversed,  to  the  height  of 
five  eighths  of  an  inch  in  the  middle,  leaving  a  thin 
partition  there  between  the  water  and  the  bubble,  hardly 
an  eighth  of  an  inch  thick ;  and  in  many  places  the  small 
bubbles  in  this  partition  had  burst  out  downward,  and 
probably  there  was  no  ice  at  all  under  the  largest  bubbles, 
which  were  a  foot  in  diameter.  I  inferred  that  the  in 
finite  number  of  minute  bubbles  which  I  had  first  seen 
against  the  under  surface  of  the  ice  were  now  frozen  in 
likewise,  and  that  each,  in  its  degree,  had  operated  like 
a  burning-glass  on  the  ice  beneath  to  melt  and  rot  it. 
These  are  the  little  air-guns  which  contribute  to  make 
the  ice  crack  and  whoop. 

At  length  the  winter  set  in  in  good  earnest,  just  as  I 
had  finished  plastering,  and  the  wind  began  to  howl 
around  the  house  as  if  it  had  not  had  permission  to  do  so 
till  then.  Night  after  night  the  geese  came  lumbering  in 
in  the  dark  with  a  clangor  and  a  whistling  of  wings,  even 
after  the  ground  was  covered  with  snow,  some  to  alight 
in  Walden,  and  some  flying  low  over  the  woods  toward 
Fair  Haven,  bound  for  Mexico.  Several  times,  when  re 
turning  from  the  village  at  ten  or  eleven  o'clock  at  night, 
I  heard  the  tread  of  a  flock  of  geese,  or  else  ducks,  on 


HOUSE-WARMING  275 

the  dry  leaves  in  the  woods  by  a  pond-hole  behind  my 
dwelling,  where  they  had  come  up  to  feed,  and  the  faint 
honk  or  quack  of  their  leader  as  they  hurried  off.  In 
1845  Walden  froze  entirely  over  for  the  first  time  on  the 
night  of  the  22d  of  December,  Flint's  and  other  shallower 
ponds  and  the  river  having  been  frozen  ten  days  or 
more;  in  '46,  the  16th;  in  '49,  about  the  31st;  and  in 
'50,  about  the  27th  of  December;  in  '52,  the  5th  of  Jan 
uary;  in  '53,  the  31st  of  December.  The  snow  had  al 
ready  covered  the  ground  since  the  25th  of  November, 
and  surrounded  me  suddenly  with  the  scenery  of  winter. 
I  withdrew  yet  farther  into  my  shell,  and  endeavored  to 
keep  a  bright  fire  both  within  my  house  and  within  my 
breast.  My  employment  out  of  doors  now  was  to  collect 
the  dead  wood  in  the  forest,  bringing  it  in  my  hands  or 
on  my  shoulders,  or  sometimes  trailing  a  dead  pine  tree 
under  each  arm  to  my  shed.  An  old  forest  fence  which 
had  seen  its  best  days  was  a  great  haul  for  me.  I  sacri 
ficed  it  to  Vulcan,  for  it  was  past  serving  the  god  Ter 
minus.  How  much  more  interesting  an  event  is  that 
man's  supper  who  has  just  been  forth  in  the  snow  to 
hunt,  nay,  you  might  say,  steal,  the  fuel  to  cook  it  with! 
His  bread  and  meat  are  sweet.  There  are  enough  fagots 
and  waste  wood  of  all  kinds  in  the  forests  of  most  of  our 
towns  to  support  many  fires,  but  which  at  present  warm 
none,  and,  some  think,  hinder  the  growth  of  the  young 
wood.  There  was  also  the  driftwood  of  the  pond.  In  the 
course  of  the  summer  I  had  discovered  a  raft  of  pitch 
pine  logs  with  the  bark  on,  pinned  together  by  the  Irish 
when  the  railroad  was  built.  This  I  hauled  up  partly 
on  the  shore.  After  soaking  two  years  and  then  lying 


276  WALDEN 

high  six  months  it  was  perfectly  sound,  though  water 
logged  past  drying.  I  amused  myself  one  winter  day 
with  sliding  this  piecemeal  across  the  pond,  nearly  half 
a  mile,  skating  behind  with  one  end  of  a  log  fifteen  feet 
long  on  my  shoulder,  and  the  other  on  the  ice ;  or  I  tied 
several  logs  together  with  a  birch  withe,  and  then,  with 
a  longer  birch  or  alder  which  had  a  hook  at  the  end, 
dragged  them  across.  Though  completely  waterlogged 
and  almost  as  heavy  as  lead,  they  not  only  burned  long, 
but  made  a  very  hot  fire ;  nay,  I  thought  that  they  burned 
better  for  the  soaking,  as  if  the  pitch,  being  confined  by 
the  water,  burned  longer,  as  in  a  lamp. 

Gilpin,  in  his  account  of  the  forest  borderers  of  Eng 
land,  says  that  "the  encroachments  of  trespassers,  and 
the  houses  and  fences  thus  raised  on  the  borders  of  the 
forest,"  were  "considered  as  great  nuisances  by  the  old 
forest  law,  and  were  severely  punished  under  the  name 
of  purprestures,  as  tending  ad  terrorem  ferarum  —  ad 
nocwnentum  forestae,  etc.,"  to  the  frightening  of  the  game 
and  the  detriment  of  the  forest.  But  I  was  interested  in 
the  preservation  of  the  venison  and  the  vert  more  than 
the  hunters  or  woodchoppers,  and  as  much  as  though  I 
had  been  the  Lord  Warden  himself ;  and  if  any  part  was 
burned,  though  I  burned  it  myself  by  accident,  I  grieved 
with  a  grief  that  lasted  longer  and  was  more  inconsol 
able  than  that  of  the  proprietors ;  nay,  I  grieved  when  it 
was  cut  down  by  the  proprietors  themselves.  I  would 
that  our  farmers  when  they  cut  down  a  forest  felt  some 
of  that  awe  which  the  old  Romans  did  when  they  came 
to  thin,  or  let  in  the  light  to,  a  consecrated  grove  (lucum 
conlucare),  that  is,  would  believe  that  it  is  sacred  to 


HOUSE-WARMING  277 

some  god.  The  Roman  made  an  expiatory  offering,  and 
prayed,  Whatever  god  or  goddess  thou  art  to  whom  this 
grove  is  sacred,  be  propitious  to  me,  my  family,  and 
children,  etc. 

It  is  remarkable  what  a  value  is  still  put  upon  wood 
even  in  this  age  and  in  this  new  country,  a  value  more  ; 
permanent  and  universal  than  that  of  gold.  After  all 
our  discoveries  and  inventions  no  man  will  go  by  a  pile 
of  wood.  It  is  as  precious  to  us  as  it  was  to  our  Saxon 
and  Norman  ancestors.  If  they  made  their  bows  of  it, 
we  make  our  gun-stocks  of  it.  Michaux,  more  than  thirty 
years  ago,  says  that  the  price  of  wood  for  fuel  in  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  "nearly  equals,  and  sometimes 
exceeds,  that  of  the  best  wood  in  Paris,  though  this  im 
mense  capital  annually  requires  more  than  three  hun 
dred  thousand  cords,  and  is  surrounded  to  the  distance 
of  three  hundred  miles  by  cultivated  plains."  In  this 
town  the  price  of  wood  rises  almost  steadily,  and  the 
only  question  is,  how  much  higher  it  is  to  be  this  year 
than  it  was  the  last.  Mechanics  and  tradesmen  who 
come  in  person  to  the  forest  on  no  other  errand,  are  sure 
to  attend  the  wood  auction,  and  even  pay  a  high  price 
for  the  privilege  of  gleaning  after  the  woodchopper.  It 
is  now  many  years  that  men  have  resorted  to  the  forest 
for  fuel  and  the  materials  of  the  arts :  the  New  Englander 
and  the  New  Hollander,  the  Parisian  and  the  Celt,  the 
farmer  and  Robin  Hood,  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill; 
in  most  parts  of  the  world  the  prince  and  the  peasant, 
the  scholar  and  the  savage,  equally  require  still  a  few 
sticks  from  the  forest  to  warm  them  and  cook  their  food. 
Neither  could  I  do  without  them. 


278  WALDEN 

Every  man  looks  at  his  wood-pile  with  a  kind  of  affec 
tion.  I  loved  to  have  mine  before  my  window,  and  the 
more  chips  the  better  to  remind  me  of  my  pleasing  work. 
I  had  an  old  axe  which  nobody  claimed,  with  which  by 
spells  in  winter  days,  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  house,  I 
played  about  the  stumps  which  I  had  got  out  of  my 
bean-field.  As  my  driver  prophesied  when  I  was  plowing, 
they  warmed  me  twice,  —  once  while  I  was  splitting  them, 
and  again  when  they  were  on  the  fire,  so  that  no  fuel 
could  give  out  more  heat.  As  for  the  axe,  I  was  advised 
I  to  get  the  village  blacksmith  to  "  jump  "  it ;  but  I  jumped 
him,  and,  putting  a  hickory  helve  from  the  woods  into  it, 
made  it  do.  If  it  was  dull,  it  was  at  least  hung  true. 

A  few  pieces  of  fat  pine  were  a  great  treasure.  It  is 
interesting  to  remember  how  much  of  this  food  for  fire 
is  still  concealed  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  In  previous 
years  I  had  often  gone  "prospecting"  over  some  bare 
hillside,  where  a  pitch  pine  wood  had  formerly  stood, 
and  got  out  the  fat  pine  roots.  They  are  almost  inde 
structible.  Stumps  thirty  or  forty  years  old,  at  least,  will 
still  be  sound  at  the  core,  though  the  sapwood  has  all 
become  vegetable  mould,  as  appears  by  the  scales  of  the 
thick  bark  forming  a  ring  level  with  the  earth  four  or 
five  inches  distant  from  the  heart.  With  axe  and  shovel 
you  explore  this  mine,  and  follow  the  marrowy  store, 
yellow  as  beef  tallow,  or  as  if  you  had  struck  on  a  vein 
of  gold,  deep  into  the  earth.  But  commonly  I  kindled 
my  fire  with  the  dry  leaves  of  the  forest,  which  I  had 
stored  up  in  my  shed  before  the  snow  came.  Green 
hickory  finely  split  makes  the  woodchopper's  kindlings, 
when  he  has  a  camp  in  the  woods.  Once  in  a  while  I  got 


HOUSE-WARMING  279 

a  little  of  this.  When  the  villagers  were  lighting  their 
fires  beyond  the  horizon,  I  too  gave  notice  to  the  various 
wild  inhabitants  of  WTalden  vale,  by  a  smoky  streamer 
from  my  chimney,  that  I  was  awake.  — 

Light-winged  Smoke,  Icarian  bird, 
Melting  thy  pinions  in  thy  upward  flight, 
Lark  without  song,  and  messenger  of  dawn, 
Circling  above  the  hamlets  as  thy  nest; 
Or  else,  departing  dream,  and  shadowy  form 
Of  midnight  vision,  gathering  up  thy  skirts; 
By  night  star-veiling,  and  by  day 
Darkening  the  light  and  blotting  out  the  sun; 
Go  thou  my  incense  upward  from  this  hearth, 
And  ask  the  gods  to  pardon  this  clear  flame. 

Hard  green  wood  just  cut,  though  I  used  but  little  of 
that,  answered  my  purpose  better  than  any  other.  I 
sometimes  left  a  good  fire  when  I  went  to  take  a  walk  in 
a  winter  afternoon;  and  when  I  returned,  three  or  four 
hours  afterward,  it  would  be  still  alive  and  glowing. 
My  house  was  not  empty  though  I  was  gone.  It  was  as 
if  I  had  left  a  cheerful  housekeeper  behind.  It  was  I 
and  Fire  that  lived  there;  and  commonly  my  house 
keeper  proved  trustworthy.  One  day,  however,  as  I  was 
splitting  wood,  I  thought  that  I  would  just  look  in  at  the 
window  and  see  if  the  house  was  not  on  fire ;  it  was  the 
only  time  I  remember  to  have  been  particularly  anxious 
on  this  score;  so  I  looked  and  saw  that  a  spark  had 
caught  my  bed,  and  I  went  in  and  extinguished  it  when 
it  had  burned  a  place  as  big  as  my  hand.  But  my  house 
occupied  so  sunny  and  sheltered  a  position,  and  its  roof 
was  so  low,  that  I  could  afford  to  let  the  fire  go  out  in 
the  middle  of  almost  any  winter  day. 


280  WALDEN 

The  moles  nested  in  my  cellar,  nibbling  every  third 
potato,  and  making  a  snug  bed  even  there  of  some  hair 
left  after  plastering  and  of  brown  paper;  for  even  the 
wildest  animals  love  comfort  and  warmth  as  well  as 
man,  and  they  survive  the  winter  only  because  they  are 
so  careful  to  secure  them.  Some  of  my  friends  spoke  as 
if  I  was  coming  to  the  woods  on  purpose  to  freeze  my 
self.  The  animal  merely  makes  a  bed,  which  he  warms 
with  his  body,  in  a  sheltered  place;  but  man,  having 
discovered  fire,  boxes  up  some  air  in  a  spacious  apart 
ment,  and  warms  that,  instead  of  robbing  himself,  makes 
that  his  bed,  in  which  he  can  move  about  divested  of 
more  cumbrous  clothing,  maintain  a  kind  of  summer  in 
the  midst  of  winter,  and  by  means  of  windows  even  ad 
mit  the  light,  and  with  a  lamp  lengthen  out  the  day. 
Thus  he  goes  a  step  or  two  beyond  instinct,  and  saves  a 
little  time  for  the  fine  arts.  Though,  when  I  had  been 
exposed  to  the  rudest  blasts  a  long  time,  my  whole  body 
began  to  grow  torpid,  when  I  reached  the  genial  atmos 
phere  of  my  house  I  soon  recovered  my  faculties  and 
prolonged  my  life.  But  the  most  luxuriously  housed  has 
little  to  boast  of  in  this  respect,  nor  need  we  trouble  our 
selves  to  speculate  how  the  human  race  may  be  at  last 
destroyed.  It  would  be  easy  to  cut  their  threads  any 
time  with  a  little  sharper  blast  from  the  north.  We  go 
on  dating  from  Cold  Fridays  and  Great  Snows;  but  a 
little  colder  Friday,  or  greater  snow  would  put  a  period 
to  man's  existence  on  the  globe. 

The  next  winter  I  used  a  small  cooking-stove  for 
economy,  since  I  did  not  own  the  forest;  but  it  did  not 
keep  fire  so  well  as  the  open  fireplace.  Cooking  was  then, 


HOUSE-WARMING  281 

for  the  most  part,  no  longer  a  poetic,  but  merely  a  chemic 
process.  It  will  soon  be  forgotten,  in  these  days  of  stoves, 
that  we  used  to  roast  potatoes  in  the  ashes,  after  the 
Indian  fashion.  The  stove  not  only  took  up  room  and 
scented  the  house,  but  it  concealed  the  fire,  and  I  felt  as 
if  I  had  lost  a  companion.  You  can  always  see  a  face  in 
the  fire.  The  laborer,  looking  into  it  at  evening,  purifies 
his  thoughts  of  the  dross  and  earthiness  which  they  have 
accumulated  during  the  day.  But  I  could  no  longer  sit 
and  look  into  the  fire,  and  the  pertinent  words  of  a  poet 
recurred  to  me  with  new  force.  — 

"  Never,  bright  flame,  may  be  denied  to  me 
Thy  dear,  life  imaging,  close  sympathy. 
What  but  my  hopes  shot  upward  e'er  so  bright  ? 
What  but  my  fortunes  sunk  so  low  in  night  ? 
Why  art  thou  banished  from  our  hearth  and  hall, 
Thou  who  art  welcomed  and  beloved  by  all  ? 
Was  thy  existence  then  too  fanciful 
For  our  life's  common  light,  who  are  so  dull  ? 
Did  thy  bright  gleam  mysterious  converse  hold 
With  our  congenial  souls  ?  secrets  too  bold  ? 

Well,  we  are  safe  and  strong,  for  now  we  sit 

Beside  a  hearth  where  no  dim  shadows  flit, 

Where  nothing  cheers  nor  saddens,  but  a  fire 

Warms  feet  and  hands  —  nor  does  to  more  aspire; 

By  whose  compact  utilitarian  heap 

The  present  may  sit  down  and  go  to  sleep, 

Nor  fear  the  ghosts  who  from  the  dim  past  walked, 

Ajid  with  us  by  the  unequal  light  of  the  old  wood  fire  talked." 


XIV 

FORMER  INHABITANTS;  AND  WINTER 
VISITORS 

_L  WEATHERED  some  merry  snow-storms,  and  spent 
some  cheerful  winter  evenings  by  my  fireside,  while  the 
snow  whirled  wildly  without,  and  even  the  hooting  of  the 
owl  was  hushed.  For  many  weeks  I  met  no  one  in  my 
walks  but  those  who  came  occasionally  to  cut  wood  and 
sled  it  to  the  village.  The  elements,  however,  abetted 
.  ^e  in  making  a  path  through  the  deepest  snow  in  the 
woods,  for  when  I  had  once  gone  through  the  wind  blew 
the  oak  leaves  into  my  tracks,  where  they  lodged,  and  by 
absorbing  the  rays  of  the  sun  melted  the  snow,  and  so 
not  only  made  a  dry  bed  for  my  feet,  but  in  the  night 
their  dark  line  was  my  guide.  For  human  society  I  was 
obliged  to  conjure  up  the  former  occupants  of  these 
woods.  Within  the  memory  of  many  of  my  townsmen 
the  road  near  which  my  house  stands  resounded  with  the 
laugh  and  gossip  of  inhabitants,  and  the  woods  which 
border  it  were  notched  and  dotted  here  and  there  with 
their  little  gardens  and  dwellings,  though  it  was  then 
much  more  shut  in  by  the  forest  than  now.  In  some 
places,  within  my  own  remembrance,  the  pines  would 
scrape  both  sides  of  a  chaise  at  once,  and  women  and  chil 
dren  who  were  compelled  to  go  this  way  to  Lincoln  alone 
and  on  foot  did  it  with  fear,  and  often  ran  a  good  part 


FORMER  INHABITANTS  283 

of  the  distance.  Though  mainly  but  a  humble  route  to 
neighboring  villages,  or  for  the  woodman's  team,  it  once 
amused  the  traveller  more  than  now  by  its  variety,  and 
lingered  longer  in  his  memory.  Where  now  firm  open 
fields  stretch  from  the  village  to  the  woods,  it  then  ran 
through  a  maple  swamp  on  a  foundation  of  logs,  the 
remnants  of  which,  doubtless,  still  underlie  the  present 
dusty  highway,  from  the  Stratton,  now  the  Aims-House, 
Farm,  to  Brister's  Hill. 

East  of  my  bean-field,  across  the  road,  lived  Cato 
Ingraham,  slave  of  Duncan  Ingraham,  Esquire,  gentle 
man,  of  Concord  village,  who  built  his  slave  a  house,  and 
gave  him  permission  to  live  in  Walden  Woods ;  —  Cato, 
not  Uticensis,  but  Concordiensis.  Some  say  that  he  was 
a  Guinea  Negro.  There  are  a  few  who  remember  his 
little  patch  among  the  walnuts,  which  he  let  grow  up  till 
he  should  be  old  and  need  them;  but  a  younger  and 
whiter  speculator  got  them  at  last.  He  too,  however, 
occupies  an  equally  narrow  house  at  present.  Cato's 
half -obliterated  cellar-hole  still  remains,  though  known 
to  few,  being  concealed  from  the  traveller  by  a  fringe  of 
pines.  It  is  now  filled  with  the  smooth  sumach  (Rhus 
glabra),  and  one  of  the  earliest  species  of  goldenrod 
(Solidago  stricta)  grows  there  luxuriantly. 

Here,  by  the  very  corner  of  my  field,  still  nearer  to 
town,  Zilpha,  a  colored  woman,  had  her  little  house, 
where  she  spun  linen  for  the  townsfolk,  making  the 
Walden  Woods  ring  with  her  shrill  singing,  for  she  had 
a  loud  and  notable  voice.  At  length,  in  the  war  of  1812, 
her  dwelling  was  set  on  fire  by  English  soldiers,  prisoners 
on  parole,  when  she  was  away,  and  her  cat  and  dog  and 


284  WALDEN 

hens  were  all  burned  up  together.  She  led  a  hard  life, 
and  somewhat  inhumane.  One  old  frequenter  of  these 
woods  remembers,  that  as  he  passed  her  house  one 
noon  he  heard  her  muttering  to  herself  over  her  gur 
gling  pot,  —  "Ye  are  all  bones,  bones!"  I  have  seen 
bricks  amid  the  oak  copse  there. 

Down  the  road,  on  the  right  hand,  on  Brister's  Hill, 
lived  Brister  Freeman,  "  a  handy  Negro,"  slave  of  Squire 
Cummings  once,  —  there  where  grow  still  the  apple 
trees  which  Brister  planted  and  tended;  large  old  trees 
now,  but  their  fruit  still  wild  and  ciderish  to  my  taste. 
Not  long  since  I  read  his  epitaph  in  the  old  Lincoln 
bury  ing-ground,  a  little  on  one  side,  near  the  unmarked 
graves  of  some  British  grenadiers  who  fell  in  the  retreat 
from  Concord,  —  where  he  is  styled  "  Sippio  Brister," 
—  Scipio  Africanus  he  had  some  title  to  be  called,  — 
"a  man  of  color,"  as  if  he  were  discolored.  It  also 
told  me,  with  staring  emphasis,  when  he  died;  which 
was  but  an  indirect  way  of  informing  me  that  he  ever 
lived.  With  him  dwelt  Fenda,  his  hospitable  wife, 
who  told  fortunes,  yet  pleasantly,  —  large,  round,  and 
black,  blacker  than  any  of  the  children  of  night,  such 
a  dusky  orb  as  never  rose  on  Concord  before  or  since. 

Farther  down  the  hill,  on  the  left,  on  the  old  road 
in  the  woods,  are  marks  of  some  homestead  of  the 
Stratton  family;  whose  orchard  once  covered  all  the 
slope  of  Brister's  Hill,  but  was  long  since  killed  out  by 
pitch  pines,  excepting  a  few  stumps,  whose  old  roots 
furnish  still  the  wild  stocks  of  many  a  thrifty  village 
tree. 

Nearer  yet  to  town,  you  come  to  Breed's  location,  on 


FORMER  INHABITANTS  285 

the  other  side  of  the  way,  just  on  the  edge  of  the  wood; 
ground  famous  for  the  pranks  of  a  demon  not  distinctly 
named  in  old  mythology,  who  has  acted  a  prominent 
and  astounding  part  in  our  New  England  life,  and  de 
serves,  as  much  as  any  mythological  character,  to  have 
his  biography  written  one  day;  who  first  comes  in  the 
guise  of  a  friend  or  hired  man,  and  then  robs  and  mur 
ders  the  whole  family,  —  New-England  Rum.  But 
history  must  not  yet  tell  the  tragedies  enacted  here; 
let  time  intervene  in  some  measure  to  assuage  and  lend 
an  azure  tint  to  them.  Here  the  most  indistinct  and 
dubious  tradition  says  that  once  a  tavern  stood;  the 
well  the  same,  which  tempered  the  traveller's  beverage 
and  refreshed  his  steed.  Here  then  men  saluted  one 
another,  and  heard  and  told  the  news,  and  went  their 
ways  again. 

Breed's  hut  was  standing  only  a  dozen  years  ago, 
though  it  had  long  been  unoccupied.  It  was  about  the 
size  of  mine.  It  was  set  on  fire  by  mischievous  boys, 
one  Election  night,  if  I  do  not  mistake.  I  lived  on  the 
edge  of  the  village  then,  and  had  just  lost  myself  over 
Davenant's  "  Gondibert,"  that  winter  that  I  labored  with 
a  lethargy,  —  which,  by  the  way,  I  never  knew  whether 
to  regard  as  a  family  complaint,  having  an  uncle  who 
goes  to  sleep  shaving  himself,  and  is  obliged  to  sprout 
potatoes  in  a  cellar  Sundays,  in  order  to  keep  awake 
and  keep  the  Sabbath,  or  as  the  consequence  of  my 
attempt  to  read  Chalmers'  collection  of  English  poetry 
without  skipping.  It  fairly  overcame  my  Nervii.  I  had 
just  sunk  my  head  on  this  when  the  bells  rung  fire,  and 
in  hot  haste  the  engines  rolled  that  way,  led  by  a  strag- 


286  WALDEN 

gling  troop  of  men  and  boys,  and  I  among  the  fore 
most,  for  I  had  leaped  the  brook.  We  thought  it  was 
far  south  over  the  woods,  —  we  who  had  run  to  fires 
before,  —  barn,  shop,  or  dwelling-house ,  or  all  to 
gether.  "  It 's  Baker's  barn,"  cried  one.  "  It  is  the  Cod- 
man  place,"  affirmed  another.  And  then  fresh  sparks 
went  up  above  the  wood,  as  if  the  roof  fell  in,  and 
we  all  shouted  "Concord  to  the  rescue!"  Wagons 
shot  past  with  furious  speed  and  crushing  loads,  bear 
ing,  perchance,  among  the  rest,  the  agent  of  the  Insur 
ance  Company,  who  was  bound  to  go  however  far; 
and  ever  and  anon  the  engine  bell  tinkled  behind,  more 
slow  and  sure;  and  rearmost  of  all,  as  it  was  afterward 
whispered,  came  they  who  set  the  fire  and  gave  the 
alarm.  Thus  we  kept  on  like  true  idealists,  rejecting 
the  evidence  of  our  senses,  until  at  a  turn  in  the  road 
we  heard  the  crackling  and  actually  felt  the  heat  of  the 
fire  from  over  the  wall,  and  realized,  alas!  that  we 
were  there.  The  very  nearness  of  the  fire  but  cooled 
our  ardor.  At  first  we  thought  to  throw  a  frog-pond  on 
to  it;  but  concluded  to  let  it  burn,  it  was  so  far  gone 
and  so  worthless.  So  we  stood  round  our  engine,  jostled 
one  another,  expressed  our  sentiments  through  speak 
ing-trumpets,  or  in  lower  tone  referred  to  the  great 
conflagrations  which  the  world  has  witnessed,  including 
Bascom's  shop,  and,  between  ourselves,  we  thought 
that,  were  we  there  in  season  with  our  "tub,"  and  a 
full  frog-pond  by,  we  could  turn  that  threatened  last 
and  universal  one  into  another  flood.  We  finally  re 
treated  without  doing  any  mischief,  —  returned  to  sleep 
and  "  Gondibert."  But  as  for  "  Gondibert,"  I  would 


FORMER   INHABITANTS  287 

except  that  passage  in  the  preface  about  wit  being  the 
soul's  powder,  —  "  but  most  of  mankind  are  strangers 
to  wit,  as  Indians  are  to  powder." 

It  chanced  that  I  walked  that  way  across  the  fields 
the  following  night,  about  the  same  hour,  and  hearing 
a  low  moaning  at  this  spot,  I  drew  near  in  the  dark,  and 
discovered  the  only  survivor  of  the  family  that  I  know, 
the  heir  of  both  its  virtues  and  its  vices,  who  alone 
was  interested  in  this  burning,  lying  on  his  stomach 
and  looking  over  the  cellar  wall  at  the  still  smouldering 
cinders  beneath,  muttering  to  himself,  as  is  his  wont. 
He  had  been  working  far  off  in  the  river  meadows  all 
day,  and  had  improved  the  first  moments  that  he  could 
call  his  own  to  visit  the  home  of  his  fathers  and  his 
youth.  He  gazed  into  the  cellar  from  all  sides  and  points 
of  view  by  turns,  always  lying  down  to  it,  as  if  there 
was  some  treasure,  which  he  remembered,  concealed 
between  the  stones,  where  there  was  absolutely  nothing 
but  a  heap  of  bricks  and  ashes.  The  house  being  gone, 
he  looked  at  what  there  was  left.  He  was  soothed  by  the 
sympathy  which  my  mere  presence  implied,  and  showed 
me,  as  well  as  the  darkness  permitted,  where  the  well 
was  covered  up;  which,  thank  Heaven,  could  never  be  \ 
burned;  and  he  groped  long  about  the  wall  to  find  the  j 
well-sweep  which  his  father  had  cut  and  mounted, 
feeling  for  the  iron  hook  or  staple  by  which  a  burden 
had  been  fastened  to  the  heavy  end,  —  all  that  he  could 
now  cling  to,  —  to  convince  me  that  it  was  no  common 
"rider."  I  felt  it,  and  still  remark  it  almost  daily  in 
my  walks,  for  by  it  hangs  the  history  of  a  family. 

Once  more,  on  the  left,  where  are  seen  the  well  and 


288  WALDEN 

lilac  bushes  by  the  wall,  in  the  now  open  field,  lived  Nut 
ting  and  Le  Grosse.  But  to  return  toward  Lincoln. 

Farther  in  the  woods  than  any  of  these,  where  the  road 
approaches  nearest  to  the  pond,  Wyman  the  potter 
squatted,  and  furnished  his  townsmen  with  earthen 
ware,  and  left  descendants  to  succeed  him.  Neither 
were  they  rich  in  worldly  goods,  holding  the  land  by 
sufferance  while  they  lived;  and  there  often  the  sheriff 
came  in  vain  to  collect  the  taxes,  and  "  attached  a  chip," 
for  form's  sake,  as  I  have  read  in  his  accounts,  there 
being  nothing  else  that  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  One 
day  in  midsummer,  when  I  was  hoeing,  a  man  who 
was  carrying  a  load  of  pottery  to  market  stopped  his 
horse  against  my  field  and  inquired  concerning  Wyman 
the  younger.  He  had  long  ago  bought  a  potter's  wheel 
of  him,  and  wished  to  know  what  had  become  of  him. 
I  had  read  of  the  potter's  clay  and  wheel  in  Scripture, 
but  it  had  never  occurred  to  me  that  the  pots  we  use 
were  not  such  as  had  come  down  unbroken  from  those 
days,  or  grown  on  trees  like  gourds  somewhere,  and  I 
was  pleased  to  hear  that  so  fictile  an  art  was  ever  prac 
ticed  in  my  neighborhood. 

The  last  inhabitant  of  these  woods  before  me  was 
an  Irishman,  Hugh  Quoil  (if  I  have  spelt  his  name 
with  coil  enough),  who  occupied  Wyman's  tenement, 
—  Col.  Quoil,  he  was  called.  Rumor  said  that  he  had 
been  a  soldier  at  Waterloo.  If  he  had  lived  I  should  have 
made  him  fight  his  battles  over  again.  His  trade  here 
was  that  of  a  ditcher.  Napoleon  went  to  St.  Helena; 
Quoil  came  to  Walden  Woods.  All  I  know  of  him  is 
tragic.  He  was  a  man  of  manners,  like  one  who  had 


WALDBN  WOODS 


FORMER  INHABITANTS  289 

seen  the  world,  and  was  capable  of  more  civil  speech 
than  you  could  well  attend  to.  He  wore  a  greatcoat  in 
midsummer,  being  affected  with  the  trembling  delirium, 
and  his  face  was  the  color  of  carmine.  He  died  in  the 
road  at  the  foot  of  Brister's  Hill  shortly  after  I  came  to 
the  woods,  so  that  I  have  not  remembered  him  as  a 
neighbor.  Before  his  house  was  pulled  down,  when  his 
comrades  avoided  it  as  "an  unlucky  castle,"  I  visited 
it.  There  lay  his  old  clothes  curled  up  by  use,  as  if  they 
were  himself,  upon  his  raised  plank  bed.  His  pipe  lay 
broken  on  the  hearth,  instead  of  a  bowl  broken  at  the 
fountain.  The  last  could  never  have  been  the  symbol 
of  his  death,  for  he  confessed  to  me  that,  though  he  had 
heard  of  Brister's  Spring,  he  had  never  seen  it;  and 
soiled  cards,  kings  of  diamonds,  spades,  and  hearts, 
were  scattered  over  the  floor.  One  black  chicken  which 
the  administrator  could  not  catch,  black  as  night  and 
as  silent,  not  even  croaking,  awaiting  Reynard,  still 
went  to  roost  in  the  next  apartment.  In  the  rear  there 
was  the  dim  outline  of  a  garden,  which  had  been  planted 
but  had  never  received  its  first  hoeing,  owing  to  those 
terrible  shaking  fits,  though  it  was  now  harvest  time.  It 
was  overrun  with  Roman  wormwood  and  beggar-ticks, 
which  last  stuck  to  my  clothes  for  all  fruit.  The  skin  of 
a  woodchuck  was  freshly  stretched  upon  the  back  of 
the  house,  a  trophy  of  his  last  Waterloo;  but  no  warm 
cap  or  mittens  would  he  want  more. 

Now  only  a  dent  in  the  earth  marks  the  site  of 
these  dwellings,  with  buried  cellar  stones,  and  straw 
berries,  raspberries,  thimble-berries,  hazel-bushes,  and 
sumachs  growing  in  the  sunny  sward  there ;  some  pitch 


290  WALDEN 

pine  or  gnarled  oak  occupies  what  was  the  chimney 
nook,  and  a  sweet-scented  black  birch,  perhaps,  waves 
where  the  door-stone  was.  Sometimes  the  well  dent 
is  visible,  where  once  a  spring  oozed;  now  dry  and 
tearless  grass ;  or  it  was  covered  deep,  —  not  to  be 
discovered  till  some  late  day,  —  with  a  flat  stone  under 
the  sod,  when  the  last  of  the  race  departed.  What  a 
sorrowful  act  must  that  be,  —  the  covering  up  of  wells ! 
coincident  with  the  opening  of  wells  of  tears.  These 
cellar  dents,  like  deserted  fox  burrows,  old  holes,  are  all 
that  is  left  where  once  were  the  stir  and  bustle  of  hu 
man  life,  and  "  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute," 
hr-somo  fernl  and  dialect  or  other  were  by  turns  dis 
cussed.  But  all  I  can  learn  of  their  conclusions  amounts 
to  just  this,  that  "  Cato  and  Brister  pulled  wool; "  which 
is  about  as  edifying  as  the  history  of  more  famous 
schools  of  philosophy. 

Still  grows  the  vivacious  lilac  a  generation  after  the 
door  and  lintel  and  the  sill  are  gone,  unfolding  its  sweet- 
scented  flowers  each  spring,  to  be  plucked  by  the  mus 
ing  traveller;  planted  and  tended  once  by  children's 
hands,  in  front-yard  plots,  —  now  standing  by  wall- 
sides  in  retired  pastures,  and  giving  place  to  new-rising 
forests ;  —  the  last  of  that  stirp,  sole  survivor  of  that 
family.  Little  did  the  dusky  children  think  that  the 
puny  slip  with  its  two  eyes  only,  which  they  stuck  in 
the  ground  in  the  shadow  of  the  house  and  daily  watered, 
would  root  itself  so,  and  outlive  them,  and  house  itself 
in  the  rear  that  shaded  it,  and  grown  man's  garden  and 
orchard,  and  tell  their  story  faintly  to  the  lone  wanderer 
a  half -century  after  they  had  grown  up  and  died,  — 


WINTER  VISITORS  291 

blossoming  as  fair,  and  smelling  as  sweet,  as  in  that 
first  spring.  I  mark  its  still  tender,  civil,  cheerful,  lilac 
colors. 

But  this  small  village,  germ  of  something  more,  why 
did  it  fail  while  Concord  keeps  its  ground  ?  Were  there 
no  natural  advantages,  —  no  water  privileges,  for 
sooth?  Ay,  the  deep  Walden  Pond  and  cool  Brister's 
Spring,  —  privilege  to  drink  long  and  healthy  draughts 
at  these*  all  unimproved  by  these  men  but  to  dilute  their 
glass.  They  were  universally  a  thirsty  race.  Might  not 
the  basket,  stable-broom,  mat-making,  corn-parching, 
linen-spinning,  and  pottery  business  have  thrived  here, 
making  the  wilderness  to  blossom  like  the  rose,  and  a 
numerous  posterity  have  inherited  the  land  of  their 
fathers?  The  sterile  soil  would  at  least  have  been 
proof  against  a  lowland  degeneracy.  Alas!  how  little 
does  the  memory  of  these  human  inhabitants  enhance 
the  beauty  of  the  landscape!  Again,  perhaps,  Nature 
will  try,  with  me  for  a  first  settler,  and  my  house  raised 
last  spring  to  be  the  oldest  in  the  hamlet. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  man  has  ever  built  on  the 
spot  which  I  occupy.  Deliver  me  from  a  city  built  on 
the  site  of  a  more  ancient  city,  whose  materials  are  ruins, 
whose  gardens  cemeteries.  The  soil  is  blanched  and 
accursed  there,  and  before  that  becomes  necessary  the 
earth  itself  will  be  destroyed.  With  such  reminiscences 
I  repeopled  the  woods  and  lulled  myself  asleep. 

At  this  season  I  seldom  had  a  visitor.  When  the 
snow  lay  deepest  no  wanderer  ventured  near  my  house 
for  a  week  or  fortnight  at  a  time,  but  there  I  lived  as 


292  WALDEN 

snug  as  a  meadow  mouse,  or  as  cattle  and  poultry  which 
are  said  to  have  survived  for  a  long  time  buried  in 
drifts,  even  without  food;  or  like  that  early  settler's 
family  in  the  town  of  Sutton,  in  this  State,  whose  cottage 
was  completely  covered  by  the  great  snow  of  1717 
when  he  was  absent,  and  an  Indian  found  it  only  by 
the  hole  which  the  chimney's  breath  made  in  the  drift, 
and  so  relieved  the  family.  But  no  friendly  Indian  con 
cerned  himself  about  me;  nor  needed  he,  for  the  mas 
ter  of  the  house  was  at  home.  The  Great  Snow !  How 
cheerful  it  is  to  hear  of  !  When  the  farmers  could  not 
get  to  the  woods  and  swamps  with  their  teams,  and 
were  obliged  to  cut  down  the  shade  trees  before  their 
houses,  and,  when  the  crust  was  harder,  cut  off  the 
trees  in  the  swamps,  ten  feet  from  the  ground,  as  it  ap 
peared  the  next  spring. 

In  the  deepest  snows,  the  path  which  I  used  from  the 
highway  to  my  house,  about  half  a  mile  long,  might 
have  been  represented  by  a  meandering  dotted  line,  with 
wide  intervals  between  the  dots.  For  a  week  of  even 
weather  I  took  exactly  the  same  number  of  steps,  and 
of  the  same  length,  coming  and  going,  stepping  delib 
erately  and  with  the  precision  of  a  pair  of  dividers  in 
my  own  deep  tracks,  —  to  such  routine  the  winter  re 
duces  us,  —  yet  often  they  were  filled  with  heaven's 
own  blue.  But  no  weather  interfered  fatally  with  my 
walks,  or  rather  my  going  abroad,  for  I  frequently 
tramped  eight  or  ten  miles  through  the  deepest  snow 
to  keep  an  appointment  with  a  beech  tree,  or  a  yellow 
birch,  or  an  old  acquaintance  among  the  pines;  when 
the  ice  and  snow  causing  their  limbs  to  droop,  and  so 


WINTER  VISITORS  293 

sharpening  their  tops,  had  changed  the  pines  into  fir 
trees;  wading  to  the  tops  of  the  highest  hills  when  the 
snow  was  nearly  two  feet  deep  on  a  level,  and  shaking 
down  another  snow-storm  on  my  head  at  every  step ;  or 
sometimes  creeping  and  floundering  thither  on  my  hands 
and  knees,  when  the  hunters  had  gone  into  winter 
quarters.  One  afternoon  I  amused  myself  by  watching 
a  barred  owl  (Strix  nebulosa)  sitting  on  one  of  the 
lower  dead  limbs  of  a  white  pine,  close  to  the  trunk, 
in  broad  daylight,  I  standing  within  a  rod  of  him.  He 
could  hear  me  when  I  moved  and  cronched  the  snow 
with  my  feet,  but  could  not  plainly  see  me.  When  I 
made  most  noise  he  would  stretch  out  his  neck,  and 
erect  his  neck  feathers,  and  open  his  eyes  wide;  but 
their  lids  soon  fell  again,  and  he  began  to  nod.  I  too 
felt  a  slumberous  influence  after  watching  him  half  an 
hour,  as  he  sat  thus  with  his  eyes  half  open,  like  a  cat, 
winged  brother  of  the  cat.  There  was  only  a  narrow 
slit  left  between  their  lids,  by  which  he  preserved  a 
peninsular  relation  to  me;  thus,  with  half-shut  eyes, 
looking  out  from  the  land  of  dreams,  and  endeavoring 
to  realize  me,  vague  object  or  mote  that  interrupted  his 
visions.  At  length,  on  some  louder  noise  or  my  nearer 
approach,  he  would  grow  uneasy  and  sluggishly  turn 
about  on  his  perch,  as  if  impatient  at  having  his  dreams 
disturbed ;  and  when  he  launched  himself  off  and  flapped 
through  the  pines,  spreading  his  wings  to  unexpected 
breadth,  I  could  not  hear  the  slightest  sound  from 
them.  Thus,  guided  amid  the  pine  boughs  rather  by  a 
delicate  sense  of  their  neighborhood  than  by  sight, 
feeling  his  twilight  way,  as  it  were,  with  his  sensitive  pin- 


294  WALDEN 

ions,  he  found  a  new  perch,  where  he  might  in  peace 
await  the  dawning  of  his  day. 

As  I  walked  over  the  long  causeway  made  for  the 
railroad  through  the  meadows,  I  encountered  many  a 
blustering  and  nipping  wind,  for  nowhere  has  it  freer 
play;  and  when  the  frost  had  smitten  me  on  one  cheek, 
heathen  as  I  was,  I  turned  to  it  the  other  also.  Nor  was 
it  much  better  by  the  carriage  road  from  Brister's  Hill. 
For  I  came  to  town  still,  like  a  friendly  Indian,  when 
the  contents  of  the  broad  open  fields  were  all  piled 
up  between  the  walls  of  the  Walden  road,  and  half  an 
hour  sufficed  to  obliterate  the  tracks  of  the  last  traveller. 
And  when  I  returned  new  drifts  would  have  formed, 
through  which  I  floundered,  where  the  busy  northwest 
wind  had  been  depositing  the  powdery  snow  round 
a  sharp  angle  in  the  road,  and  not  a  rabbit's  track,  nor 
even  the  fine  print,  the  small  type,  of  a  meadow  mouse 
was  to  be  seen.  Yet  I  rarely  failed  to  find,  even  in  mid 
winter,  some  warm  and  springy  swamp  where  the 
grass  and  the  skunk-cabbage  still  put  forth  with  peren 
nial  verdure,  and  some  hardier  bird  occasionally  awaited 
the  return  of  spring. 

Sometimes,  notwithstanding  the  snow,  when  I  re 
turned  from  my  walk  at  evening  I  crossed  the  deep 
tracks  of  a  woodchopper  leading  from  my  door,  and 
found  his  pile  of  whittlings  on  the  hearth,  and  my  house 
filled  with  the  odor  of  his  pipe.  Or  on  a  Sunday  after 
noon,  if  I  chanced  to  be  at  home,  I  heard  the  cronching 
of  the  snow  made  by  the  step  of  a  long-headed  farmer, 
who  from  far  through  the  woods  sought  my  house,  to 
have  a  social  "crack;"  one  of  the  few  of  his  vocation 


WINTER  VISITORS  295 

who  are  "men  on  their  farms;"  who  donned  a  frock 
instead  of  a  professor's  gown,  and  is  as  ready  to  ex 
tract  the  moral  out  of  church  or  state  as  to  haul  a  load 
of  manure  from  his  barn-yard.  We  talked  of  rude  and 
simple  times,  when  men  sat  about  large  fires  in  cold, 
bracing  weather,  with  clear  heads;  and  when  other 
dessert  failed,  we  tried  our  teeth  on  many  a  nut  which 
wise  squirrels  have  long  since  abandoned,  for  those 
which  have  the  thickest  shells  are  commonly  empty. 

The  one  who  came  from  farthest  to  my  lodge,  through 
deepest  snows  and  most  dismal  tempests,  was  a  poet. 
A  farmer,  a  hunter,  a  soldier,  a  reporter,  even  a  phi 
losopher,  may  be  daunted;  but  nothing  can  deter  a 
poet,  for  he  is  actuated  by  pure  love.  Who  can  pre 
dict  his  comings  and  goings?  His  business  calls  him 
out  at  all  hours,  even  when  doctors  sleep.  We  made 
that  small  house  ring  with  boisterous  mirth  and  re 
sound  with  the  murmur  of  much  sober  talk,  making 
amends  then  to  Walden  vale  for  the  long  silences. 
Broadway  was  still  and  deserted  in  comparison.  At 
suitable  intervals  there  were  regular  salutes  of  laughter, 
which  might  have  been  referred  indifferently  to  the 
last-uttered  or  the  forth-coming  jest.  We  made  many 
a  "  bran  new  "  theory  of  life  over  a  thin  dish  of  gruel, 
which  combined  the  advantages  of  conviviality  with 
the  clear-headedness  which  philosophy  requires. 

I  shouldnot  forget  that  during  my  last  winter  at  the 
pond  there  was  another  welcome  visitor,  who  at  one 
time  came  through  the  village,  through  snow  and  rain 
and  darkness,  till  he  saw  my  lamp  through  the  trees,  and 
shared  with  me  some  long  winter  evenings.  One  of  the 


296  WALDEN 

last  of  the  philosophers,  —  Connecticut  gave  him  to 
the  world, — he  peddled  first  her  wares,  afterwards,  as 
he  declares,  his  brains.  These  he  peddles  still,  prompt 
ing  God  and  disgracing  man,  bearing  for  fruit  his  brain 
only,  like  the  nut  its  kernel.  I  think  that  he  must  be  the 
man  of  the  most  faith  of  any  alive.  His  words  and  atti 
tude  always  suppose  a  better  state  of  things  than  other 
men  are  acquainted  with,  and  he  will  be  the  last  man 
to  be  disappointed  as  the  ages  revolve.  He  has  no  ven 
ture  in  the  present.  But  though  comparatively  disre 
garded  now,  when  his  day  comes,  laws  unsuspected  by 
most  will  take  effect,  and  masters  of  families  and  rulers 
will  come  to  him  for  advice.  — 

"  How  blind  that  cannot  see  serenity  ! " 

A  true  friend  of  man ;  almost  the  only  friend  of  human 
progress.  An  Old  Mortality,  say  rather  an  Immortality, 
with  unwearied  patience  and  faith  making  plain  the 
image  engraven  in  men's  bodies,  the  God  of  wThom  they 
are  but  defaced  and  leaning  monuments.  With  his  hos 
pitable  intellect  he  embraces  children,  beggars,  insane, 
and  scholars,  and  entertains  the  thought  of  all,  adding 
to  it  commonly  some  breadth  and  elegance.  I  think  that 
he  should  keep  a  caravansary  on  the  world's  highway, 
where  philosophers  of  all  nations  might  put  up,  and 
on  his  sign  should  be  printed,  "  Entertainment  for  man, 
but  not  for  his  beast.  Enter  ye  that  have  leisure  and  a 
quiet  mind,  who  earnestly  seek  the  right  road."  He  is 
perhaps  the  sanest  man  and  has  the  fewest  crotchets  of 
any  I  chance  to  know;  the  same  yesterday  and  to-mor 
row.  Of  yore  we  had  sauntered  and  talked,  and  effect- 


WINTER  VISITORS  297 

ually  put  the  world  behind  us;  for  he  was  pledged  to 
no  institution  in  it,  freeborn,  ingenuus.  Whichever  way 
we  turned,  it  seemed  that  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
had  met  together,  since  he  enhanced  the  beauty  of  the 
landscape.  A  blue-robed  man,  whose  fittest  roof  is  the 
overarching  sky  which  reflects  his  serenity.  I  do  not 
see  how  he  can  ever  die;  Nature  cannot  spare  him. 

Having  each  some  shingles  of  thought  well  dried,  we 
sat  and  whittled  them,  trying  our  knives,  and  admiring 
the  clear  yellowish  grain  of  the  pumpkin  pine.  We 
waded  so  gently  and  reverently,  or  we  pulled  together 
so  smoothly,  that  the  fishes  of  thought  were  not  scared 
from  the  stream,  nor  feared  any  angler  on  the  bank,  but 
came  and  went  grandly,  like  the  clouds  which  float 
through  the  western  sky,  and  the  mother-o'-pearl  flocks 
which  sometimes  form  and  dissolve  there.  There  we 
worked,  revising  mythology,  rounding  a  fable  here  and 
there,  and  building  castles  in  the  air  for  which  earth 
offered  no  worthy  foundation.  Great  Looker  !  Great 
Expecter  !  to  converse  with  whom  was  a  New  England 
Night's  Entertainment.  Ah  !  such  discourse  we  had, 
hermit  and  philosopher,  and  the  old  settler  I  have 
spoken  of,  —  we  three,  —  it  expanded  and  racked  my 
little  house ;  I  should  not  dare  to  say  how  many  pounds' 
weight  there  was  above  the  atmospheric  pressure  on 
every  circular  inch ;  it  opened  its  seams  so  that  they  had 
to  be  calked  with  much  dulness  thereafter  to  stop  the 
consequent  leak;  —  but  I  had  enough  of  that  kind  of 
oakum  already  picked. 

There  was  one  other  with  whom  I  had  "solid  sea 
sons,"  long  to  be  remembered,  at  his  house  in  the  vil- 


298  WALDEN 

lage,  and  who  looked  in  upon  me  from  time  to  time; 
but  I  had  no  more  for  society  there. 

There  too,  as  everywhere,  I  sometimes  expected  the 
Visitor  who  never  comes.  The  Vishnu  Purana  says, 
"  The  house-holder  is  to  remain  at  eventide  in  his  court 
yard  as  long  as  it  takes  to  milk  a  cow,  or  longer  if  he 
pleases,  to  await  the  arrival  of  a  guest."  I  often  per 
formed  this  duty  of  hospitality,  waited  long  enough  to 
milk  a  whole  herd  of  cows,  but  did  not  see  the  man 
approaching  from  the  town. 


XV 

WINTER  ANIMALS 

HEN  the  ponds  were  firmly  frozen,  they  afforded 
not  only  new  and  shorter  routes  to  many  points,  but 
new  views  from  their  surfaces  of  the  familiar  land 
scape  around  them.  When  I  crossed  Flint's  Pond,  after 
it  was  covered  with  snow,  though  I  had  often  paddled 
about  and  skated  over  it,  it  was  so  unexpectedly  wide 
and  so  strange  that  I  could  think  of  nothing  but  Baffin's 
Bay.  The  Lincoln  hills  rose  up  around  me  at  the  ex 
tremity  of  a  snowy  plain,  in  which  I  did  not  remember 
to  have  stood  before;  and  the  fishermen,  at  an  indeter 
minable  distance  over  the  ice,  moving  slowly  about 
with  their  wolfish  dogs,  passed  for  sealers  or  Esquimaux, 
or  in  misty  weather  loomed  like  fabulous  creatures, 
and  I  did  not  know  whether  they  were  giants  or  pyg 
mies.  I  took  this  course  when  I  went  to  lecture  in  Lin 
coln  in  the  evening,  travelling  in  no  road  and  passing 
no  house  between  my  own  hut  and  the  lecture  room.  In 
Goose  Pond,  which  lay  in  my  way,  a  colony  of  muskrats 
dwelt,  and  raised  their  cabins  high  above  the  ice,  though 
none  could  be  seen  abroad  when  I  crossed  it.  Walden, 
being  like  the  rest  usually  bare  of  snow,  or  with  only 
shallow  and  interrupted  drifts  on  it,  was  my  yard  where 
I  could  walk  freely  when  the  snow  was  nearly  two  feet 
deep  on  a  level  elsewhere  and  the  villagers  were  con- 


300  WALDEN 

fined  to  their  streets.  There,  far  from  the  village  street, 
and  except  at  very  long  intervals,  from  the  jingle  of 
sleigh-bells,  I  slid  and  skated,  as  in  a  vast  moose-yard 
well  trodden,  overhung  by  oak  woods  and  solemn  pines 
bent  down  with  snow  or  bristling  with  icicles. 

For  sounds  in  winter  nights,  and  often  in  winter 
days,  I  heard  the  forlorn  but  melodious  note  of  a  hoot 
ing  owl  indefinitely  far;  such  a  sound  as  the  frozen 
earth  would  yield  if  struck  with  a  suitable  plectrum, 
the  very  lingua  vernacula  of  Walden  Wood,  and  quite 
familiar  to  me  at  last,  though  I  never  saw  the  bird  while 
it  was  making  it.  I  seldom  opened  my  door  in  a  winter 
evening  without  hearing  it;  Hoo  hoo  hoo,  hoorer  hoo, 
sounded  sonorously,  and  the  first  three  syllables  ac 
cented  somewhat  like  how  der  do  ;  or  sometimes  hoo  hoo 
only.  One  night  in  the  beginning  of  winter,  before  the 
pond  froze  over,  about  nine  o'clock,  I  was  startled  by 
the  loud  honking  of  a  goose,  and,  stepping  to  the  door, 
heard  the  sound  of  their  wings  like  a  tempest  in  the 
woods  as  they  flew  low  over  my  house.  They  passed 
over  the  pond  toward  Fair  Haven,  seemingly  deterred 
from  settling  by  my  light,  their  commodore  honking  all 
the  while  with  a  regular  beat.  Suddenly  an  unmistak 
able  cat  owl  from  very  near  me,  with  the  most  harsh 
and  tremendous  voice  I  ever  heard  from  any  inhabitant 
of  the  woods,  responded  at  regular  intervals  to  the  goose, 
as  if  determined  to  expose  and  disgrace  this  intruder 
from  Hudson's  Bay  by  exhibiting  a  greater  compass 
and  volume  of  voice  in  a  native,  and  boo-hoo  him  out  of 
Concord  horizon.  What  do  you  mean  by  alarming  the 
citadel  at  this  time  of  night  consecrated  to  me  ?  Do  you 


WINTER  ANIMALS  301 

think  I  am  ever  caught  napping  at  such  an  hour,  and 
that  I  have  not  got  lungs  and  a  larynx  as  well  as  your 
self  ?  Boo-hoo,  boo-hoo,  boo-hoo  !  It  was  one  of  the  most 
thrilling  discords  I  ever  heard.  And  yet,  if  you  had  a 
discriminating  ear,  there  were  in  it  the  elements  of  a 
concord  such  as  these  plains  never  saw  nor  heard. 

I  also  heard  the  whooping  of  the  ice  in  the  pond, 
my  great  bed-fellow  in  that  part  of  Concord,  as  if  it 
were  restless  in  its  bed  and  would  fain  turn  over,  were 
troubled  with  flatulency  and  bad  dreams;  or  I  was 
waked  by  the  cracking  of  the  ground  by  the  frost,  as  if 
some  one  had  driven  a  team  against  my  door,  and  in 
the  morning  would  find  a  crack  in  the  earth  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  long  and  a  third  of  an  inch  wide. 

Sometimes  I  heard  the  foxes  as  they  ranged  over  the 
snow-crust,  in  moonlight  nights,  in  search  of  a  partridge 
or  other  game,  barking  raggedly  and  demoniacally  like 
forest  dogs,  as  if  laboring  with  some  anxiety,  or  seeking 
expression,  struggling  for  light  and  to  be  dogs  outright 
and  run  freely  in  the  streets;  for  if  we  take  the  ages 
into  our  account,  may  there  not  be  a  civilization  going 
on  among  brutes  as  well  as  men  ?  They  seemed  to  me 
to  be  rudimental,  burrowing  men,  still  standing  on  their 
defence,  awaiting  their  transformation.  Sometimes  one 
came  near  to  my  window,  attracted  by  my  light,  barked 
a  vulpine  curse  at  me,  and  then  retreated. 

Usually  the  red  squirrel  (Sciurus  Hudsonius)  waked 
me  in  the  dawn,  coursing  over  the  roof  and  up  and 
down  the  sides  of  the  house,  as  if  sent  out  of  the  woods 
for  this  purpose.  In  the  course  of  the  winter  I  threw 
out  half  a  bushel  of  ears  of  sweet  corn,  which  had  not 


302  WALDEN 

got  ripe,  on  to  the  snow-crust  by  my  door,  and  was 
amused  by  watching  the  motions  of  the  various  animals 
which  were  baited  by  it.  In  the  twilight  and  the  night 
the  rabbits  came  regularly  and  made  a  hearty  meal. 
All  day  long  the  red  squirrels  came  and  went,  and 
afforded  me  much  entertainment  by  their  manoeuvres. 
One  would  approach  at  first  warily  through  the  shrub 
oaks,  running  over  the  snow-crust  by  fits  and  starts 
like  a  leaf  blown  by  the  wind,  now  a  few  paces  this  way, 
with  wonderful  speed  and  waste  of  energy,  making  in 
conceivable  haste  with  his  "trotters,"  as  if  it  were  for 
a  wager,  and  now  as  many  paces  that  way,  but  never 
getting  on  more  than  half  a  rod  at  a  time;  and  then 
suddenly  pausing  with  a  ludicrous  expression  and  a 
gratuitous  somerset,  as  if  all  the  eyes  in  the  universe 
were  fixed  on  him,  —  for  all  the  motions  of  a  squirrel, 
even  in  the  most  solitary  recesses  of  the  forest,  imply 
spectators  as  much  as  those  of  a  dancing  girl,  —  wast 
ing  more  time  in  delay  and  circumspection  than  would 
have  sufficed  to  walk  the  whole  distance,  —  I  never 
saw  one  walk,  —  and  then  suddenly,  before  you  could 
say  Jack  Robinson,  he  would  be  in  the  top  of  a  young 
pitch  pine,  winding  up  his  clock  and  chiding  all  im 
aginary  spectators,  soliloquizing  and  talking  to  all  the 
universe  at  the  same  time,  —  for  no  reason  that  I  could 
ever  detect,  or  he  himself  was  aware  of,  I  suspect.  At 
length  he  would  reach  the  corn,  and  selecting  a  suitable 
ear,  frisk  about  in  the  same  uncertain  trigonometrical 
way  to  the  topmost  stick  of  my  wood-pile,  before  my 
window,  where  he  looked  me  in  the  face,  and  there  sit 
for  hours,  supplying  himself  with  a  new  ear  from  time 


WINTER  ANIMALS  303 

to  time,  nibbling  at  first  voraciously  and  throwing  the 
half -naked  cobs  about;  till  at  length  he  grew  more 
dainty  still  and  played  with  his  food,  tasting  only  the 
inside  of  the  kernel,  and  the  ear,  which  was  held  bal 
anced  over  the  stick  by  one  paw,  slipped  from  his  care 
less  grasp  and  fell  to  the  ground,  when  he  would  look 
over  at  it  with  a  ludicrous  expression  of  uncertainty,  as 
if  suspecting  that  it  had  life,  with  a  mind  not  made  up 
whether  to  get  it  again,  or  a  new  one,  or  be  off;  now 
thinking  of  corn,  then  listening  to  hear  what  was  in 
the  wind.  So  the  little  impudent  fellow  would  waste 
many  an  ear  in  a  forenoon;  till  at  last,  seizing  some 
longer  and  plumper  one,  considerably  bigger  than  him 
self,  and  skilfully  balancing  it,  he  would  set  out  with  it 
to  the  woods,  like  a  tiger  with  a  buffalo,  by  the  same 
zigzag  course  and  frequent  pauses,  scratching  along 
with  it  as  if  it  were  too  heavy  for  him  and  falling  all  the 
while,  making  its  fall  a  diagonal  between  a  perpendicu 
lar  and  horizontal,  being  determined  to  put  it  through 
at  any  rate;  —  a  singularly  frivolous  and  whimsical 
fellow;  —  and  so  he  would  get  off  with  it  to  where  he 
lived,  perhaps  carry  it  to  the  top  of  a  pine  tree  forty  or 
fifty  rods  distant,  and  I  would  afterwards  find  the  cobs 
strewn  about  the  woods  in  various  directions. 

At  length  the  jays  arrive,  whose  discordant  screams 
were  heard  long  before,  as  they  were  warily  making 
their  approach  an  eighth  of  a  mile  off,  and  in  a  stealthy 
and  sneaking  manner  they  flit  from  tree  to  tree,  nearer 
and  nearer,  and  pick  up  the  kernels  which  the  squirrels 
have  dropped.  Then,  sitting  on  a  pitch  pine  bough,  they 
attempt  to  swallow  in  their  haste  a  kernel  which  is  too 


304  WALDEN 

big  for  their  throats  and  chokes  them;  and  after  great 
labor  they  disgorge  it,  and  spend  an  hour  in  the  en 
deavor  to  crack  it  by  repeated  blows  with  their  bills. 
They  were  manifestly  thieves,  and  I  had  not  much  re 
spect  for  them;  but  the  squirrels,  though  at  first  shy, 
went  to  work  as  if  they  were  taking  what  was  their 
own. 

Meanwhile  also  came  the  chickadees  in  flocks,  which, 
picking  up  the  crumbs  the  squirrels  had  dropped,  flew 
to  the  nearest  twig,  and,  placing  them  under  their  claws, 
hammered  away  at  them  with  their  little  bills,  as  if  it 
were  an  insect  in  the  bark,  till  they  were  sufficiently  re 
duced  for  their  slender  throats.  A  little  flock  of  these  tit 
mice  came  daily  to  pick  a  dinner  out  of  my  wood-pile,  or 
the  crumbs  at  my  door,  with  faint  flitting  lisping  notes, 
like  the  tinkling  of  icicles  in  the  grass,  or  else  with 
sprightly  day  day  day,  or  more  rarely,  in  springlike  days, 
a  wiry  summery  phe-be  from  the  woodside.  They  were 
so  familiar  that  at  length  one  alighted  on  an  armful  of 
wood  which  I  was  carrying  in,  and  pecked  at  the  sticks 
without  fear.  I  once  had  a  sparrow  alight  upon  my 
shoulder  for  a  moment  while  I  was  hoeing  in  a  village 
garden,  and  I  felt  that  I  was  more  distinguished  by  that 
circumstance  than  I  should  have  been  by  any  epaulet  I 
could  have  worn.  The  squirrels  also  grew  at  last  to  be 
quite  familiar,  and  occasionally  stepped  upon  my  shoe, 
when  that  was  the  nearest  way. 

When  the  ground  was  not  yet  quite  covered,  and  again 
near  the  end  of  winter,  when  the  snow  was  melted  on  my 
south  hillside  and  about  my  wood-pile,  the  partridges 
eame  out  of  the  woods  morning  and  evening  to  feed 


WINTER  ANIMALS  305 

there.  Whichever  side  you  walk  in  the  woods  the  par 
tridge  bursts  away  on  whirring  wings,  jarring  the  snow 
from  the  dry  leaves  and  twigs  on  high,  which  comes  sift 
ing  down  in  the  sunbeams  like  golden  dust,  for  this  brave 
bird  is  not  to  be  scared  by  winter.  It  is  frequently  cov 
ered  up  by  drifts,  and,  it  is  said,  "sometimes  plunges 
from  on  wing  into  the  soft  snow,  where  it  remains  con 
cealed  for  a  day  or  two."  I  used  to  start  them  in  the 
open  land  also,  where  they  had  come  out  of  the  woods 
at  sunset  to  "bud"  the  wild  apple  trees.  They  will 
come  regularly  every  evening  to  particular  trees,  where 
the  cunning  sportsman  lies  in  wait  for  them,  and  the 
distant  orchards  next  the  woods  suffer  thus  not  a  little. 
I  am  glad  that  the  partridge  gets  fed,  at  any  rate. 
It  is  Nature's  own  bird  which  lives  on  buds  and  diet- 
drink. 

In  dark  winter  mornings,  or  in  short  winter  afternoons, 
I  sometimes  heard  a  pack  of  hounds  threading  all  the 
woods  with  hounding  cry  and  yelp,  unable  to  resist  the 
instinct  of  the  chase,  and  the  note  of  the  hunting-horn  at 
intervals,  proving  that  man  was  in  the  rear.  The  woods 
ring  again,  and  yet  no  fox  bursts  forth  on  to  the  open 
level  of  the  pond,  nor  following  pack  pursuing  their 
Actseon.  And  perhaps  at  evening  I  see  the  hunters  re 
turning  with  a  single  brush  trailing  from  their  sleigh  for 
a  trophy,  seeking  their  inn.  They  tell  me  that  if  the  fox 
would  remain  in  the  bosom  of  the  frozen  earth  he  would 
be  safe,  or  if  he  would  run  in  a  straight  line  away  no 
foxhound  could  overtake  him;  but,  having  left  his  pur 
suers  far  behind,  he  stops  to  rest  and  listen  till  they  come 
up,  and  when  he  runs  he  circles  round  to  his  old  haunts, 


306  WALDEN 

where  the  hunters  await  him.  Sometimes,  however,  he 
will  run  upon  a  wall  many  rods,  and  then  leap  off  far 
to  one  side,  and  he  appears  to  know  that  water  will  not 
retain  his  scent.  A  hunter  told  me  that  he  once  saw  a 
fox  pursued  by  hounds  burst  out  on  to  Walden  when 
the  ice  was  covered  with  shallow  puddles,  run  part  way 
across,  and  then  return  to  the  same  shore.  Ere  long  the 
hounds  arrived,  but  here  they  lost  the  scent.  Sometimes 
a  pack  hunting  by  themselves  would  pass  my  door,  and 
circle  round  my  house,  and  yelp  and  hound  without  re 
garding  me,  as  if  afflicted  by  a  species  of  madness,  so 
that  nothing  could  divert  them  from  the  pursuit.  Thus 
they  circle  until  they  fall  upon  the  recent  trail  of  a  fox, 
for  a  wise  hound  will  forsake  everything  else  for  this. 
One  day  a  man  came  to  my  hut  from  Lexington  to  in 
quire  after  his  hound  that  made  a  large  track,  and  had 
been  hunting  for  a  week  by  himself.  But  I  fear  that  he 
was  not  the  wiser  for  all  I  told  him,  for  every  time  I  at 
tempted  to  answer  his  questions  he  interrupted  me  by 
asking,  "  What  do  you  do  here  ? "  He  had  lost  a  dog, 
but  found  a  man. 

One  old  hunter  who  has  a  dry  tongue,  who  used  to 
come  to  bathe  in  Walden  once  every  year  when  the 
water  was  warmest,  and  at  such  times  looked  in  upon 
me,  told  me  that  many  years  ago  he  took  his  gun  one 
afternoon  and  went  out  for  a  cruise  in  Walden  Wood; 
and  as  he  walked  the  Wayland  road  he  heard  the  cry  of 
hounds  approaching,  and  ere  long  a  fox  leaped  the  wall 
into  the  road,  and  as  quick  as  thought  leaped  the  other 
wall  out  of  the  road,  and  his  swift  bullet  had  not  touched 
him.  Some  way  behind  came  an  old  hound  and  her 


WINTER  ANIMALS  307 

three  pups  in  full  pursuit,  hunting  on  their  own  account, 
and  disappeared  again  in  the  woods.  Late  in  the  after 
noon,  as  he  was  resting  in  the  thick  woods  south  of  Wai- 
den,  he  heard  the  voice  of  the  hounds  far  over  toward 
Fair  Haven  still  pursuing  the  fox;  and  on  they  came, 
their  hounding  cry  which  made  all  the  woods  ring  sound 
ing  nearer  and  nearer,  now  from  Well  Meadow,  now 
from  the  Baker  Farm.  For  a  long  time  he  stood  still  and 
listened  to  their  music,  so  sweet  to  a  hunter's  ear,  when 
suddenly  the  fox  appeared,  threading  the  solemn  aisles 
with  an  easy  coursing  pace,  whose  sound  was  concealed 
by  a  sympathetic  rustle  of  the  leaves,  swift  and  still, 
keeping  the  ground,  leaving  his  pursuers  far  behind; 
and,  leaping  upon  a  rock  amid  the  woods,  he  sat  erect 
and  listening,  with  his  back  to  the  hunter.  For  a  mo 
ment  compassion  restrained  the  latter's  arm;  but  that 
was  a  short-lived  mood,  and  as  quick  as  thought  can 
follow  thought  his  piece  was  levelled,  and  whang  !  —  the 
fox,  rolling  over  the  rock,  lay  dead  on  the  ground.  The 
hunter  still  kept  his  place  and  listened  to  the  hounds. 
Still  on  they  came,  and  now  the  near  woods  resounded 
through  all  their  aisles  with  their  demoniac  cry.  At 
length  the  old  hound  burst  into  view  with  muzzle  to  the 
ground,  and  snapping  the  air  as  if  possessed,  and  ran 
directly  to  the  rock ;  but,  spying  the  dead  fox,  she  suddenly 
ceased  her  hounding,  as  if  struck  dumb  with  amazement, 
and  walked  round  and  round  him  in  silence  ;  and  one 
by  one  her  pups  arrived,  and,  like  their  mother,  were 
sobered  into  silence  by  the  mystery.  Then  the  hunter 
came  forward  and  stood  in  their  midst,  and  the  mys 
tery  was  solved.  They  waited  in  silence  while  he  skinned 


308  WALDEN 

the  fox,  then  followed  the  brush  a  while,  and  at  length 
turned  off  into  the  woods  again.  That  evening  a  Weston 
squire  came  to  the  Concord  hunter's  cottage  to  inquire 
for  his  hounds,  and  told  how  for  a  week  they  had  been 
hunting  on  their  own  account  from  Weston  woods.  The 
Concord  hunter  told  him  what  he  knew  and  offered  him 
the  skin;  but  the  other  declined  it  and  departed.  He  did 
not  find  his  hounds  that  night,  but  the  next  day  learned 
that  they  had  crossed  the  river  and  put  up  at  a  farm 
house  for  the  night,  whence,  having  been  well  fed,  they 
took  their  departure  early  in  the  morning. 

The  hunter  who  told  me  this  could  remember  one 
Sam  Nutting,  who  used  to  hunt  bears  on  Fair  Haven 
Ledges,  and  exchange  their  skins  for  rum  in  Concord 
village;  who  told  him,  even,  that  he  had  seen  a  moose 
there.  Nutting  had  a  famous  foxhound  named  Bur- 
goyne, — he  pronounced  it  Bugine,  —  which  my  inform 
ant  used  to  borrow.  In  the  "Wast  Book"  of  an  old 
trader  of  this  town,  who  was  also  a  captain,  town-clerk, 
and  representative,  I  find  the  following  entry.  Jan.  18th, 
1742-3,  "  John  Melven  Cr.  by  1  Grey  Fox  0  —  2  —  3;" 
they  are  not  now  found  here;  and  in  his  ledger,  Feb. 
7th,  1743,  Hezekiah  Stratton  has  credit  "by  J  a  Catt 
skin  0  —  1  —  4J; "  of  course,  a  wild-cat,  for  Stratton  was 
a  sergeant  in  the  old  French  war,  and  would  not  have  got 
credit  for  hunting  less  noble  game.  Credit  is  given  for 
deerskins  also,  and  they  were  daily  sold.  One  man  still 
preserves  the  horns  of  the  last  deer  that  was  killed  in  this 
vicinity,  and  another  has  told  me  the  particulars  of  the 
hunt  in  which  his  uncle  was  engaged.  The  hunters  were 
formerly  a  numerous  and  merry  crew  here.  I  remember 


WINTER  ANIMALS  309 

well  one  gaunt  Nimrod  who  would  catch  up  a  leaf  by 
the  roadside  and  play  a  strain  on  it  wilder  and  more 
melodious,  if  my  memory  serves  me,  than  any  hunting- 
horn. 

At  midnight,  when  there  was  a  moon,  I  sometimes 
met  with  hounds  in  my  path  prowling  about  the  woods, 
which  would  skulk  out  of  my  way,  as  if  afraid,  and  stand 
silent  amid  the  bushes  till  I  had  passed. 

Squirrels  and  wild  mice  disputed  for  my  store  of  nuts. 
There  were  scores  of  pitch  pines  around  my  house,  from 
one  to  four  inches  in  diameter,  which  had  been  gnawed 
by  mice  the  previous  winter,  —  a  Norwegian  winter  for 
them,  for  the  snow  lay  long  and  deep,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  mix  a  large  proportion  of  pine  bark  with  their 
other  diet.  These  trees  were  alive  and  apparently  flour 
ishing  at  midsummer,  and  many  of  them  had  grown  a 
foot,  though  completely  girdled;  but  after  another  win 
ter  such  were  without  exception  dead.  It  is  remarkable 
that  a  single  mouse  should  thus  be  allowed  a  whole  pine 
tree  for  its  dinner,  gnawing  round  instead  of  up  and 
down  it ;  but  perhaps  it  is  necessary  in  order  to  thin  these 
trees,  which  are  wont  to  grow  up  densely. 

The  hares  (Lepus  Americanus)  were  very  familiar. 
One  had  her  form  under  my  house  all  winter,  separated 
from  me  only  by  the  flooring,  and  she  startled  me  each 
morning  by  her  hasty  departure  when  I  began  to  stir,  — 
thump,  thump,  thump,  striking  her  head  against  the 
floor  timbers  in  her  hurry.  They  used  to  come  round  my 
door  at  dusk  to  nibble  the  potato  parings  which  I  had 
thrown  out,  and  were  so  nearly  the  color  of  the  ground 
that  they  could  hardly  be  distinguished  when  still.  Some- 


310  WALDEN 

times  in  the  twilight  I  alternately  lost  and  recovered 
sight  of  one  sitting  motionless  under  my  window.  When 
I  opened  my  door  in  the  evening,  off  they  would  go  with 
a  squeak  and  a  bounce.  Near  at  hand  they  only  excited 
my  pity.  One  evening  one  sat  by  my  door  two  paces 
from  me,  at  first  trembling  with  fear,  yet  unwilling  to 
move;  a  poor  wee  thing,  lean  and  bony,  with  ragged 
ears  and  sharp  nose,  scant  tail  and  slender  paws.  It 
looked  as  if  Nature  no  longer  contained  the  breed  of 
nobler  bloods,  but  stood  on  her  last  toes.  Its  large  eyes 
appeared  young  and  unhealthy,  almost  dropsical.  I  took 
a  step,  and  lo,  away  it  scud  with  an  elastic  spring  over 
the  snow-crust,  straightening  its  body  and  its  limbs  into 
graceful  length,  and  soon  put  the  forest  between  me  and 
itself,  —  the  wild  free  venison,  asserting  its  vigor  and 
the  dignity  of  Nature.  Not  without  reason  was  its  slen- 
derness.  Such  then  was  its  nature.  (Lepus,  levipes,  light- 
foot,  some  think.) 

What  is  a  country  without  rabbits  and  partridges? 
They  are  among  the  most  simple  and  indigenous  animal 
products;  ancient  and  venerable  families  known  to  anti 
quity  as  to  modern  times ;  of  the  very  hue  and  substance 
of  Nature,  nearest  allied  to  leaves  and  to  the  ground,  — 
and  to  one  another;  it  is  either  winged  or  it  is  legged. 
It  is  hardly  as  if  you  had  seen  a  wild  creature  when  a 
rabbit  or  a  partridge  bursts  away,  only  a  natural  one,  as 
much  to  be  expected  as  rustling  leaves.  The  partridge 
and  the  rabbit  are  still  sure  to  thrive,  like  true  natives 
of  the  soil,  whatever  revolutions  occur.  If  the  forest  is 
cut  off,  the  sprouts  and  bushes  which  spring  up  afford 
them  concealment,  and  they  become  more  numerous 


WINTER  ANIMALS  311 

than  ever.  That  must  be  a  poor  country  indeed  that  does 
not  support  a  hare.  Our  woods  teem  with  them  both, 
and  around  every  swamp  may  be  seen  the  partridge  or 
rabbit  walk,  beset  with  twiggy  fences  and  horse-hair 
snares,  which  some  cow-boy  tends. 


XVI 

THE  POND  IN  WINTER 

APTER  a  still  winter  night  I  awoke  with  the  impres 
sion  that  some  question  had  been  put  to  me,  which  I  had 
been  endeavoring  in  vain  to  answer  in  my  sleep,  as  what 
—  how  —  when  —  where  ?  But  there  was  dawning  Na 
ture,  in  whom  all  creatures  live,  looking  in  at  my  broad 
windows  with  serene  and  satisfied  face,  and  no  question 
on  her  lips.  I  awoke  to  an  answered  question,  to  Nature 
and  daylight.  The  snow  lying  deep  on  the  earth  dotted 
with  young  pines,  and  the  very  slope  of  the  hill  on  which 
my  house  is  placed,  seemed  to  say,  Forward!  Nature 
puts  no  question  and  answers  none  which  we  mortals  ask. 
She  has  long  ago  taken  her  resolution.  "  O  Prince,  our 
eyes  contemplate  with  admiration  and  transmit  to  the 
soul  the  wonderful  and  varied  spectacle  of  this  universe. 
The  night  veils  without  doubt  a  part  of  this  glorious 
creation ;  but  day  comes  to  reveal  to  us  this  great  work, 
which  extends  from  earth  even  into  the  plains  of  the 
ether." 

Then  to  my  morning  work.  First  I  take  an  axe  and 
pail  and  go  in  search  of  water,  if  that  be  not  a  dream. 
After  a  cold  and  snowy  night  it  needed  a  divining-rod  to 
find  it.  Every  winter  the  liquid  and  trembling  surface 
of  the  pond,  which  was  so  sensitive  to  every  breath,  and  re 
flected  every  light  and  shadow,  becomes  solid  to  the  depth 


THE  POND  IN  WINTER  313 

of  a  foot  or  a  foot  and  a  half,  so  that  it  will  support  the 
heaviest  teams,  and  perchance  the  snow  covers  it  to  an 
equal  depth,  and  it  is  not  to  be  distinguished  from  any 
level  field.  Like  the  marmots  in  the  surrounding  hills, 
it  closes  its  eyelids  and  becomes  dormant  for  three  months 
or  more.  Standing  on  the  snow-covered  plain,  as  if  in  a 
pasture  amid  the  hills,  I  cut  my  way  first  through  a  foot 
of  snow,  and  then  a  foot  of  ice,  and  open  a  window  un 
der  my  feet,  where,  kneeling  to  drink,  I  look  down  into 
the  quiet  parlor  of  the  fishes,  pervaded  by  a  softened 
light  as  through  a  window  of  ground  glass,  with  its  bright 
sanded  floor  the  same  as  in  summer;  there  a  perennial 
waveless  serenity  reigns  as  in  the  amber  twilight  sky, 
corresponding  to  the  cool  and  even  temperament  of  the 
inhabitants.  Heaven  is  under  our  feet  as  well  as  over 
our  heads. 

Early  in  the  morning,  while  all  things  are  crisp  with 
frost,  men  come  with  fishing-reels  and  slender  lunch, 
and  let  down  their  fine  lines  through  the  snowy  field  to 
take  pickerel  and  perch;  wild  men,  who  instinctively  fol 
low  other  fashions  and  trust  other  authorities  than  their 
townsmen,  and  by  their  goings  and  comings  stitch  towns 
together  in  parts  where  else  they  would  be  ripped.  They 
sit  and  eat  their  luncheon  in  stout  fear-naughts  on  the 
dry  oak  leaves  on  the  shore,  as  wise  in  natural  lore  as  the 
citizen  is  in  artificial.  They  never  consulted  with  books, 
and  know  and  can  tell  much  less  than  they  have  done. 
The  things  which  they  practice  are  said  not  yet  to  be 
known.  Here  is  one  fishing  for  pickerel  with  grown  perch 
for  bait.  You  look  into  his  pail  with  wonder  as  into  a 
summer  pond,  as  if  he  kept  summer  locked  up  at  home, 


814  WALDEN 

or  knew  where  she  had  retreated.  How,  pray,  did  he  get 
these  in  midwinter?  Oh,  he  got  worms  out  of  rotten 
logs  since  the  ground  froze,  and  so  he  caught  them.  His 
life  itself  passes  deeper  in  nature  than  the  studies  of 
the  naturalist  penetrate ;  himself  a  subject  for  the  natu 
ralist.  The  latter  raises  the  moss  and  bark  gently  with 
his  knife  in  search  of  insects ;  the  former  lays  open  logs 
to  their  core  with  his  axe,  and  moss  and  bark  fly  far  and 
wide.  He  gets  his  living  by  barking  trees.  Such  a  man 
has  some  right  to  fish,  and  I  love  to  see  nature  carried 
out  in  him.  The  perch  swallows  the  grub-worm,  the 
pickerel  swallows  the  perch,  and  the  fisherman  swal 
lows  the  pickerel;  and  so  all  the  chinks  in  the  scale  of 
being  are  filled. 

When  I  strolled  around  the  pond  in  misty  weather 
I  was  sometimes  amused  by  the  primitive  mode  which 
some  ruder  fisherman  had  adopted.  He  would  perhaps 
have  placed  alder  branches  over  the  narrow  holes  in  the 
ice,  which  were  four  or  five  rods  apart  and  an  equal  dis 
tance  from  the  shore,  and  having  fastened  the  end  of  the 
line  to  a  stick  to  prevent  its  being  pulled  through,  have 
passed  the  slack  line  over  a  twig  of  the  alder,  a  foot  or 
more  above  the  ice,  and  tied  a  dry  oak  leaf  to  it,  which, 
being  pulled  down,  would  show  when  he  had  a  bite. 
These  alders  loomed  through  the  mist  at  regular  inter 
vals  as  you  walked  half  way  round  the  pond. 

Ah,  the  pickerel  of  Walden!  when  I  see  them  lying 
on  the  ice,  or  in  the  well  which  the  fisherman  cuts  in  the 
ice,  making  a  little  hole  to  admit  the  water,  I  am  always 
surprised  by  their  rare  beauty,  as  if  they  were  fabulous 
fishes,  they  are  so  foreign  to  the  streets,  even  to  the 


THE   POND   IN   WINTER  315 

woods,  foreign  as  Arabia  to  our  Concord  life.  They 
possess  a  quite  dazzling  and  transcendent  beauty  which 
separates  them  by  a  wide  interval  from  the  cadaverous 
cod  and  haddock  whose  fame  is  trumpeted  in  our  streets. 
They  are  not  green  like  the  pines,  nor  gray  like  the 
stones,  nor  blue  like  the  sky;  but  they  have,  to  my  eyes, 
if  possible,  yet  rarer  colors,  like  flowers  and  precious 
stones,  as  if  they  were  the  pearls,  the  animalized  nuclei 
or  crystals  of  the  Walden  water.  They,  of  course,  are 
Walden  all  over  and  all  through;  are  themselves  small 
Waldens  in  the  animal  kingdom,  Waldenses.  It  is  sur 
prising  that  they  are  caught  here,  —  that  in  this  deep 
and  capacious  spring,  far  beneath  the  rattling  teams  and 
chaises  and  tinkling  sleighs  that  travel  the  Walden  road, 
this  great  gold  and  emerald  fish  swims.  I  never  chanced 
to  see  its  kind  in  any  market;  it  would  be  the  cynosure 
of  all  eyes  there.  Easily,  with  a  few  convulsive  quirks, 
they  give  up  their  watery  ghosts,  like  a  mortal  trans 
lated  before  his  time  to  the  thin  air  of  heaven. 

As  I  was  desirous  to  recover  the  long  lost  bottom  of 
Walden  Pond,  I  surveyed  it  carefully,  before  the  ice 
broke  up,  early  in  '46,  with  compass  and  chain  and 
sounding  line.  There  have  been  many  stories  told  about 
the  bottom,  or  rather  no  bottom,  of  this  pond,  which 
certainly  had  no  foundation  for  themselves.  It  is  re 
markable  how  long  men  will  believe  in  the  bottomless- 
ness  of  a  pond  without  taking  the  trouble  to  sound  it.  I 
have  visited  two  such  Bottomless  Ponds  in  one  walk  in 
this  neighborhood.  Many  have  believed  that  Walden 
reached  quite  through  to  the  other  side  of  the  globe. 


316  WALDEN 

Some  who  have  lain  flat  on  the  ice  for  a  long  time,  look 
ing  down  through  the  illusive  medium,  perchance  with 
watery  eyes  into  the  bargain,  and  driven  to  hasty  con 
clusions  by  the  fear  of  catching  cold  in  their  breasts, 
have  seen  vast  holes  "  into  which  a  load  of  hay  might  be 
driven,"  if  there  were  anybody  to  drive  it,  the  undoubted 
source  of  the  Styx  and  entrance  to  the  Infernal  Regions 
from  these  parts.  Others  have  gone  down  from  the  vil 
lage  with  a  "  fifty-six  "  and  a  wagon  load  of  inch  rope, 
but  yet  have  failed  to  find  any  bottom;  for  while  the 
"  fifty-six  "  was  resting  by  the  way,  they  were  paying  out 
the  rope  in  the  vain  attempt  to  fathom  their  truly 
immeasurable  capacity  for  marvellousness.  But  I  can 
assure  my  readers  that  Walden  has  a  reasonably  tight 
bottom  at  a  not  unreasonable,  though  at  an  unusual, 
depth.  I  fathomed  it  easily  with  a  cod-line  and  a  stone 
weighing  about  a  pound  and  a  half,  and  could  tell  accu 
rately  when  the  stone  left  the  bottom,  by  having  to  pull 
so  much  harder  before  the  water  got  underneath  to 
help  me.  The  greatest  depth  was  exactly  one  hundred 
and  two  feet;  to  which  may  be  added  the  five  feet  which 
it  has  risen  since,  making  one  hundred  and  seven.  This 
is  a  remarkable  depth  for  so  small  an  area ;  yet  not  an 
inch  of  it  can  be  spared  by  the  imagination.  What  if 
all  ponds  were  shallow  ?  Would  it  not  react  on  the  minds 
of  men  ?  I  am  thankful  that  this  pond  was  made  deep 
and  pure  for  a  symbol.  While  men  believe  in  the  infinite 
some  ponds  will  be  thought  to  be  bottomless. 

A  factory-owner,  hearing  what  depth  I  had  found, 
thought  that  it  could  not  be  true,  for,  judging  from  his 
acquaintance  with  dams,  sand  would  not  lie  at  so  steep  an 


THE   POND  IN  WINTER  317 

angle.  But  the  deepest  ponds  are  not  so  deep  in  propor 
tion  to  their  area  as  most  suppose,  and,  if  drained,  would 
not  leave  very  remarkabk  valleys.  They  are  not  like 
cups  between  the  hills ;  forthis  one,  which  is  so  unusually 
deep  for  its  area,  appears  in  a  vertical  section  through  its 
centre  not  deeper  than  a  shallow  plate.  Most  ponds, 
emptied,  would  leave  a  meadow  no  more  hollow  than 
we  frequently  see.  William  Gilpin,  who  is  so  admirable 
in  all  that  relates  to  landscapes,  and  usually  so  correct, 
standing  at  the  head  of  Loch  Fyne,  in  Scotland,  which 
he  describes  as  "a  bay  of  salt  water,  sixty  or  seventy 
fathoms  deep,  four  miles  in  breadth,"  and  about  fifty 
miles  long,  surrounded  by  mountains,  observes,  "  If  we 
could  have  seen  it  immediately  after  the  diluvian  crash, 
or  whatever  convulsion  of  nature  occasioned  it,  before 
the  waters  gushed  in,  what  a  horrid  chasm  must  it  have 
appeared ! 

"So  high  as  heaved  the  tumid  hills,  so  low 
Down  sunk  a  hollow  bottom  broad  and  deep, 
Capacious  bed  of  waters." 

But  if,  using  the  shortest  diameter  of  Loch  Fyne,  we 
apply  these  proportions  to  Walden,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  appears  already  in  a  vertical  section  only  like  a 
shallow  plate,  it  will  appear  four  times  as  shallow.  So 
much  for  the  increased  horrors  of  the  chasm  of  Loch 
Fyne  when  emptied.  No  doubt  many  a  smiling  valley 
with  its  stretching  cornfields  occupies  exactly  such  a 
"horrid  chasm,"  from  which  the  waters  have  receded, 
though  it  requires  the  insight  and  the  far  sight  of  the 
geologist  to  convince  the  unsuspecting  inhabitants  of 
this  fact.  Often  an  inquisitive  eye  may  detect  the  shores 


318  WALDEN 

of  a  primitive  lake  in  the  ^ow  horizon  hills,  and  no 
subsequent  elevation  of  the  (plain  have  been  necessary 
to  conceal  their  history.  But  it  is  easiest,  as  they  who 
work  on  the  highways  know,  to  find  the  hollows  by  the 
puddles  after  a  shower.  The  Amount  of  it  is,  the  imagi 
nation,  give  it  the  least  license,  dives  deeper  and  soars 
higher  than  Nature  goes.  So,  probably,  the  depth  of 
the  ocean  will  be  found  to  be  very  inconsiderable  com 
pared  with  its  breadth. 

As  I  sounded  through  the  ice  I  could  determine  the 
shape  of  the  bottom  with  greater  accuracy  than  is  pos 
sible  in  surveying  harbors  which  do  not  freeze  over, 
and  I  was  surprised  at  its  general  regularity.  In  the 
deepest  part  there  are  several  acres  more  level  than  al 
most  any  field  which  is  exposed  to  the  sun,  wind,  and 
plow.  In  one  instance,  on  a  line  arbitrarily  chosen, 
the  depth  did  not  vary  more  than  one  foot  in  thirty 
rods;  and  generally,  near  the  middle,  I  could  calculate 
the  variation  for  each  one  hundred  feet  in  any  direction 
beforehand  within  three  or  four  inches.  Some  are  ac 
customed  to  speak  of  deep  and  dangerous  holes  even  in 
quiet  sandy  ponds  like  this,  but  the  effect  of  water  under 
these  circumstances  is  to  level  all  inequalities.  The 
regularity  of  the  bottom  and  its  conformity  to  the  shores 
and  the  range  of  the  neighboring  hills  were  so  perfect 
that  a  distant  promontory  betrayed  itself  in  the  sound 
ings  quite  across  the  pond,  and  its  direction  could  be 
determined  by  observing  the  opposite  shore.  Cape  be 
comes  bar,  and  plain  shoal,  and  valley  and  gorge  deep 
water  and  channel. 

When  I  had  mapped  the  pond  by  the  scale  of  ten 


THE   POND   IN  WINTER  319 

rods  to  an  inch,  and  put  down  the  soundings,  more  than 
a  hundred  in  all,  I  observed  this  remarkable  coinci 
dence.  Having  noticed  that  the  number  indicating  the 
greatest  depth  was  apparently  in  the  centre  of  the  map, 
I  laid  a  rule  on  the  map  lengthwise,  and  then  breadth 
wise,  and  found,  to  my  surprise,  that  the  line  of  greatest 
length  intersected  the  line  of  greatest  breadth  exactly 
at  the  point  of  greatest  depth,  notwithstanding  that  the 
middle  is  so  nearly  level,  the  outline  of  the  pond  far 
from  regular,  and  the  extreme  length  and  breadth  were 
got  by  measuring  into  the  coves;  and  I  said  to  myself, 
Who  knows  but  this  hint  would  conduct  to  the  deepest 
part  of  the  ocean  as  well  as  of  a  pond  or  puddle  ?  Is  not 
this  the  rule  also  for  the  height  of  mountains,  regarded 
as  the  opposite  of  valleys  ?  We  know  that  a  hill  is  not 
highest  at  its  narrowest  part. 

Of  five  coves,  three,  or  all  which  had  been  sounded, 
were  observed  to  have  a  bar  quite  across  their  mouths 
and  deeper  water  within,  so  that  the  bay  tended  to  be 
an  expansion  of  water  within  the  land  not  only  hori 
zontally  but  vertically,  and  to  form  a  basin  or  independ 
ent  pond,  the  direction  of  the  two  capes  showing  the 
course  of  the  bar.  Every  harbor  on  the  sea-coast,  also, 
has  its  bar  at  its  entrance.  In  proportion  as  the  mouth 
of  the  cove  was  wider  compared  with  its  length,  the  water 
over  the  bar  was  deeper  compared  with  that  in  the 
basin.  Given,  then,  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  cove, 
and  the  character  of  the  surrounding  shore,  and  you 
have  almost  elements  enough  to  make  out  a  formula 
for  all  cases. 

In  order  to  see  how  nearly  I  could  guess,  with  this 


320  WALDEN 

experience,  at  the  deepest  point  in  a  pond,  by  observing 
the  outlines  of  its  surface  and  the  character  of  its  shores 
alone,  I  made  a  plan  of  White  Pond,  which  contains 
about  forty-one  acres,  and,  like  this,  has  no  island  in 
it,  nor  any  visible  inlet  or  outlet;  and  as  the  line  of 
greatest  breadth  fell  very  near  the  line  of  least  breadth, 
where  two  opposite  capes  approached  each  other  and 
two  opposite  bays  receded,  I  ventured  to  mark  a  point 
a  short  distance  from  the  latter  line,  but  still  on  the  line 
of  greatest  length,  as  the  deepest.  The  deepest  part 
was  found  to  be  within  one  hundred  feet  of  this,  still 
farther  in  the  direction  to  which  I  had  inclined,  and 
was  only  one  foot  deeper,  namely,  sixty  feet.  Of  course, 
a  stream  running  through,  or  an  island  in  the  pond, 
would  make  the  problem  much  more  complicated. 

If  we  knew  all  the  laws  of  Nature,  we  should  need 
only  one  fact,  or  the  description  of  one  actual  phenome 
non,  to  infer  all  the  particular  results  at  that  point. 
Now  we  know  only  a  few  laws,  and  our  result  is  viti 
ated,  not,  of  course,  by  any  confusion  or  irregularity  in 
Nature,  but  by  our  ignorance  of  essential  elements  in 
the  calculation.  Our  notions  of  law  and  harmony  are 
commonly  confined  to  those  instances  which  we  detect ; 
but  the  harmony  which  results  from  a  far  greater  num 
ber  of  seemingly  conflicting,  but  really  concurring,  laws, 
which  we  have  not  detected,  is  still  more  wonderful. 
Tiie  particular  laws  are  as  our  points  of  view,  as,  to 
t.hr  traveller,  a  mountain  outline  varies  with  every  step, 
and  it  has  an  infinite  number  of  profiles,  though  abso 
lutely  but  one  form.  Even  when  cleft  or  bored  through 
it  is  not  comprehended  in  its  entireness. 


THE  POND   IN  WINTER  321 

What  I  have  observed  of  the  pond  is  no  less  true  in 
ethics.  It  is  the  law  of  average.  Such  a  rule  of  the  two 
diameters  not  only  guides  us  toward  the  sun  in  the 
system  and  the  heart  in  man,  but  draw  lines  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  aggregate  of  a  man's 
particular  daily  behaviors  and  waves  of  life  into  his 
coves  and  inlets,  and  where  they  intersect  will  be  the 
height  or  depth  of  his  character.  Perhaps  we  need 
only  to  know  how  his  shores  trend  and  his  adjacent 
country  or  circumstances,  to  infer  his  depth  and  con 
cealed  bottom.  If  he  is  surrounded  by  mountainous 
circumstances,  an  Achillean  shore,  whose  peaks  over 
shadow  and  are  reflected  in  his  bosom,  they  suggest  a 
corresponding  depth  in  him.  But  a  low  and  smooth 
shore  proves  him  shallow  on  that  side.  In  our  bodies, 
a  bold  projecting  brow  falls  off  to  and  indicates  a  cor 
responding  depth  of  thought.  Also  there  is  a  bar  across 
the  entrance  of  our  every  cove,  or  particular  inclina 
tion  ;  each  is  our  harbor  for  a  season,  in  which  we  are 
detained  and  partially  land-locked.  These  inclinations 
are  not  whimsical  usually,  but  their  form,  size,  and 
direction  are  determined  by  the  promontories  of  the 
shore,  the  ancient  axes  of  elevation.  When  this  bar  is 
gradually  increased  by  storms,  tides,  or  currents,  or 
there  is  a  subsidence  of  the  waters,  so  that  it  reaches  to 
the  surface,  that  which  was  at  first  but  an  inclination  in 
the  shore  in  which  a  thought  was  harbored  becomes 
an  individual  lake,  cut  off  from  the  ocean,  wherein  the 
thought  secures  its  own  conditions,  —  changes,  per 
haps,  from  salt  to  fresh,  becomes  a  sweet  sea,  dead  sea, 
or  a  marsh.  At  the  advent  of  each  individual  into  this 


322  WALDEN 

life,  may  we  not  suppose  that  such  a  bar  has  risen  to  the 
surface  somewhere  ?  It  is  true,  we  are  such  poor  navi 
gators  that  our  thoughts,  for  the  most  part,  stand  off 
and  on  upon  a  harborless  coast,  are  conversant  only 
with  the  bights  of  the  bays  of  poesy,  or  steer  for  the 
public  ports  of  entry,  and  go  into  the  dry  docks  of 
science,  where  they  merely  refit  for  this  world,  and  no 
natural  currents  concur  to  individualize  them. 

As  for  the  inlet  or  outlet  of  Walden,  I  have  not  dis 
covered  any  but  rain  and  snow  and  evaporation,  though 
perhaps,  with  a  thermometer  and  a  line,  such  places 
may  be  found,  for  where  the  water  flows  into  the  pond 
it  will  probably  be  coldest  in  summer  and  warmest  in 
winter.  When  the  ice-men  were  at  work  here  in  '46-7, 
the  cakes  sent  to  the  shore  were  one  day  rejected  by 
those  who  were  stacking  them  up  there,  not  being  thick 
enough  to  lie  side  by  side  with  the  rest ;  and  the  cutters 
thus  discovered  that  the  ice  over  a  small  space  was 
two  or  three  inches  thinner  than  elsewhere,  which  made 
them  think  that  there  was  an  inlet  there.  They  also 
showed  me  in  another  place  what  they  thought  was  a 
"  leach-hole,"  through  which  the  pond  leaked  out  under 
a  hill  into  a  neighboring  meadow,  pushing  me  out  on  a 
cake  of  ice  to  see  it.  It  was  a  small  cavity  under  ten 
feet  of  water;  but  I  think  that  I  can  warrant  the  pond 
not  to  need  soldering  till  they  find  a  worse  leak  than 
that.  One  has  suggested,  that  if  such  a  "  leach-hole " 
should  be  found,  its  connection  with  the  meadow,  if  any 
existed,  might  be  proved  by  conveying  some  colored 
powder  or  sawdust  to  the  mouth  of  the  hole,  and  then 
putting  a  strainer  over  the  spring  in  the  meadow,  which 


THE   POND   IN   WINTER  323 

would  catch  some  of  the  particles  carried  through  by 
the  current. 

While  I  was  surveying,  the  ice,  which  was  sixteen 
inches  thick,  undulated  under  a  slight  wind  like  water. 
It  is  well  known  that  a  level  cannot  be  used  on  ice.  At 
one  rod  from  the  shore  its  greatest  fluctuation,  when 
observed  by  means  of  a  level  on  land  directed  toward 
a  graduated  staff  on  the  ice,  was  three  quarters  of  an 
inch,  though  the  ice  appeared  firmly  attached  to  the 
shore.  It  was  probably  greater  in  the  middle.  Who 
knows  but  if  our  instruments  were  delicate  enough  we 
might  detect  an  undulation  in  the  crust  of  the  earth? 
When  two  legs  of  my  level  were  on  the  shore  and  the 
third  on  the  ice,  and  the  sights  were  directed  over  the 
latter,  a  rise  or  fall  of  the  ice  of  an  almost  infinitesimal 
amount  made  a  difference  of  several  feet  on  a  tree  across 
the  pond.  When  I  began  to  cut  holes  for  sounding 
there  were  three  or  four  inches  of  water  on  the  ice  under 
a  deep  snow  which  had  sunk  it  thus  far;  but  the  water 
began  immediately  to  run  into  these  holes,  and  continued 
to  run  for  two  days  in  deep  streams,  which  wore  away 
the  ice  on  every  side,  and  contributed  essentially,  if  not 
mainly,  to  dry  the  surface  of  the  pond ;  for,  as  the  water 
ran  in,  it  raised  and  floated  the  ice.  This  was  some 
what  like  cutting  a  hole  in  the  bottom  of  a  ship  to  let  the 
water  out.  When  such  holes  freeze,  and  a  rain  succeeds, 
and  finally  a  new  freezing  forms  a  fresh  smooth  ice  over 
all,  it  is  beautifully  mottled  internally  by  dark  figures, 
shaped  somewhat  like  a  spider's  web,  what  you  may 
call  ice  rosettes,  produced  by  the  channels  worn  by 
the  water  flowing  from  all  sides  to  a  centre.  Sometimes, 


324  WALDEN 

also,  when  the  ice  was  covered  with  shallow  puddles,  I 
saw  a  double  shadow  of  myself,  one  standing  on  the 
head  of  the  other,  one  on  the  ice,  the  other  on  the  trees 
or  hillside. 

While  yet  it  is  cold  January,  and  snow  and  ice  are 
thick  and  solid,  the  prudent  landlord  comes  from  the 
village  to  get  ice  to  cool  his  summer  drink;  impres 
sively,  even  pathetically,  wise,  to  foresee  the  heat  and 
thirst  of  July  now  in  January,  —  wearing  a  thick  coat 
and  mittens  !  when  so  many  things  are  not  provided  for. 
It  may  be  that  he  lays  up  no  treasures  in  this  world 
which  will  cool  his  summer  drink  in  the  next.  He  cuts 
and  saws  the  solid  pond,  unroofs  the  house  of  fishes, 
and  carts  off  their  very  element  and  air,  held  fast  by 
chains  and  stakes  like  corded  wood,  through  the  favor 
ing  winter  air,  to  wintry  cellars,  to  underlie  the  summer 
there.  It  looks  like  solidified  azure,  as,  far  off,  it  is 
drawn  through  the  streets.  These  ice-cutters  are  a 
merry  race,  full  of  jest  and  sport,  and  when  I  went 
among  them  they  were  wont  to  invite  me  to  saw  pit- 
fashion  with  them,  I  standing  underneath. 

In  the  winter  of  '46-7  there  came  a  hundred  men  of 
Hyperborean  extraction  swoop  down  on  to  our  pond 
one  morning,  with  many  carloads  of  ungainly-look 
ing  farming  tools,  —  sleds,  plows,  drill-barrows,  turf- 
knives,  spades,  saws,  rakes,  and  each  man  was  armed 
with  a  double-pointed  pike-staff,  such  as  is  not  de 
scribed  in  the  New-England  Farmer  or  the  Cultivator. 
I  did  not  know  whether  they  had  come  to  sow  a  crop  of 
winter  rye,  or  some  other  kind  of  grain  recently  intro- 


THE   POND   IN   WINTER  325. 

duced  Trom  Iceland.  As  I  saw  no  manure,  I  judged  that 
they  meant  to  skim  the  land,  as  I  had  done,  thinking 
the  soil  was  deep  and  had  lain  fallow  long  enough. 
They  said  that  a  gentleman  farmer,  who  was  behind 
the  scenes,  wanted  to  double  his  money,  which,  as  I 
understood,  amounted  to  half  a  million  already;  but  in 
order  to  cover  each  one  of  his  dollars  with  another,  he 
took  off  the  only  coat,  ay,  the  skin  itself,  of  Walden 
Pond  in  the  midst  of  a  hard  winter.  They  went  to  work 
at  once,  plowing,  harrowing,  rolling,  furrowing,  in  ad 
mirable  order,  as  if  they  were  bent  on  making  this  a 
model  farm ;  but  when  I  was  looking  sharp  to  see  what 
kind  of  seed  they  dropped  into  the  furrow,  a  gang  of 
fellows  by  my  side  suddenly  began  to  hook  up  the 
virgin  mould  itself,  with  a  peculiar  jerk,  clean  down 
to  the  sand,  or  rather  the  water,  —  for  it  was  a  very 
springy  soil,  —  indeed  all  the  terra  firnia  there  was,  — 
and  haul  it  away  on  sleds,  and  then  I  guessed  that  they 
must  be  cutting  peat  in  a  bog.  So  they  came  and  went 
every  day,  with  a  peculiar  shriek  from  the  locomotive, 
from  and  to  some  point  of  the  polar  regions,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  like  a  flock  of  arctic  snowbirds.  But  sometimes 
Squaw  Walden  had  her  revenge,  and  a  hired  man,  walk 
ing  behind  his  team,  slipped  through  a  crack  in  the 
ground  down  toward  Tartarus,  and  he  who  was  so 
brave  before  suddenly  became  but  the  ninth  part  of  a 
man,  almost  gave  up  his  animal  heat,  and  was  glad  to 
take  refuge  in  my  house,  and  acknowledged  that  there 
was  some  virtue  in  a  stove;  or  sometimes  the  frozen 
soil  took  a  piece  of  steel  out  of  a  plowshare,  or  a  plow  got 
set  in  llic  furrow  and  had  to  be  cut  out. 


326  WALDEN 

To  speak  literally,  a  hundred  Irishmen,  with  Yankee 
overseers,  came  from  Cambridge  every  day  to  get  out 
the  ice.  They  divided  it  into  cakes  by  methods  too  well 
known  to  require  description,  and  these,  being  sledded 
to  the  shore,  were  rapidly  hauled  off  on  to  an  ice  plat 
form,  and  raised  by  grappling  irons  and  block  and 
tackle,  worked  by  horses,  on  to  a  stack,  as  surely  as  so 
many  barrels  of  flour,  and  there  placed  evenly  side  by 
side,  and  row  upon  row,  as  if  they  formed  the  solid  base 
of  an  obelisk  designed  to  pierce  the  clouds.  They  told 
me  that  in  a  good  day  they  could  get  out  a  thousand 
tons,  which  was  the  yield  of  about  one  acre.  Deep  ruts 
and  "cradle-holes"  were  worn  in  the  ice,  as  on  terra 
finna,  by  the  passage  of  the  sleds  over  the  same  track, 
and  the  horses  invariably  ate  their  oats  out  of  cakes  of 
ice  hollowed  out  like  buckets.  They  stacked  up  the 
cakes  thus  in  the  open  air  in  a  pile  thirty-five  feet  high 
on  one  side  and  six  or  seven  rods  square,  putting  hay 
between  the  outside  layers  to  exclude  the  air;  for  when 
the  wind,  though  never  so  cold,  finds  a  passage  through, 
it  will  wear  large  cavities,  leaving  slight  supports  or 
studs  only  here  and  there,  and  finally  topple  it  down. 
At  first  it  looked  like  a  vast  blue  fort  or  Valhalla;  but 
when  they  began  to  tuck  the  coarse  meadow  hay  into 
the  crevices,  and  this  became  covered  with  rime  and 
icicles,  it  looked  like  a  venerable  moss-grown  and  hoary 
ruin,  built  of  azure-tinted  marble,  the  abode  of  Winter, 
that  old  man  we  see  in  the  almanac,  —  his  shanty,  as 
if  he  had  a  design  to  estivate  with  us.  They  calculated 
that  not  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  this  would  reach  its 
destination,  and  that  two  or  three  per  cent,  would  be 


THE    POND   IN   WINTER  327 

wasted  in  the  cars.  However,  a  still  greater  part  of  this 
heap  had  a  different  destiny  from  what  was  intended; 
for,  either  because  the  ice  was  found  not  to  keep  so  well 
as  was  expected,  containing  more  air  than  usual,  or  for 
some  other  reason,  it  never  got  to  market.  This  heap, 
made  in  the  winter  of  '46-7  and  estimated  to  contain 
ten  thousand  tons,  was  finally  covered  with  hay  and 
boards;  and  though  it  was  unroofed  the  following  July, 
and  a  part  of  it  carried  off,  the  rest  remaining  exposed 
to  the  sun,  it  stood  over  that  summer  and  the  next 
winter,  and  was  not  quite  melted  till  September,  1848. 
Thus  the  pond  recovered  the  greater  part. 

Like  the  water,  the  Walden  ice,  seen  near  at  hand,  has 
a  green  tint,  but  at  a  distance  is  beautifully  blue,  and 
you  can  easily  tell  it  from  the  white  ice  of  the  river,  or 
the  merely  greenish  ice  of  some  ponds,  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  off.  Sometimes  one  of  those  great  cakes  slips  from 
the  ice-man's  sled  into  the  village  street,  and  lies  there 
for  a  week  like  a  great  emerald,  an  object  of  interest  to 
all  passers.  I  have  noticed  that  a  portion  of  Walden 
which  in  the  state  of  water  was  green  will  often,  -when 
frozen,  appear  from  the  same  point  of  view  blue.  So 
the  hollows  about  this  pond  will,  sometimes,  in  the  win 
ter,  be  filled  with  a  greenish  water  somewhat  like  its 
own,  but  the  next  day  will  have  frozen  blue.  Perhaps 
the  blue  color  of  water  and  ice  is  due  to  the  light  and 
air  they  contain,  and  the  most  transparent  is  the  bluest. 
Ice  is  an  interesting  subject  for  contemplation.  They 
told  me  that  they  had  some  in  the  ice-houses  at  Fresh 
Pond  five  years  old  which  was  as  good  as  ever.  Why 
is  it  that  a  bucket  of  water  soon  becomes  putrid,  but 


328  WALDEN 

frozen  remains  sweet  forever?  It  is  commonly  said  that 
this  is  the  difference  between  the  affections  and  the 
intellect. 

Thus  for  sixteen  days  I  saw  from  my  window  a  hun 
dred  men  at  work  like  busy  husbandmen,  with  teams 
and  horses  and  apparently  all  the  implements  of  farm 
ing,  such  a  picture  as  we  see  on  the  first  page  of  the 
almanac;  and  as  often  as  I  looked  out  I  was  reminded 
of  the  fable  of  the  lark  and  the  reapers,  or  the  parable 
of  the  sower,  and  the  like;  and  now  they  are  all  gone, 
and  in  thirty  days  more,  probably,  I  shall  look  from 
the  same  window  on  the  pure  sea-green  Walden  water 
there,  reflecting  the  clouds  and  the  trees,  and  sending 
up  its  evaporations  in  solitude,  and  no  traces  will  ap 
pear  that  a  man  has  ever  stood  there.  Perhaps  I  shall 
hear  a  solitary  loon  laugh  as  he  dives  and  plumes  him 
self,  or  shall  see  a  lonely  fisher  in  his  boat,  like  a  floating 
leaf,  beholding  his  form  reflected  in  the  waves,  where 
lately  a  hundred  men  securely  labored. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  sweltering  inhabitants  of 
Charleston  and  New  Orleans,  of  Madras  and  Bombay 
and  Calcutta,  drink  at  my  well.  In  the  morning  I  bathe 
my  intellect  in  the  stupendous  and  cosmogonal  phi 
losophy  of  the  Bhagvat-Geeta,  since  whose  composition 
years  of  the  gods  have  elapsed,  and  in  comparison  with 
which  our  modern  world  and  its  literature  seem  puny 
and  trivial;  and  I  doubt  if  that  philosophy  is  not  to  be 
referred  to  a  previous  state  of  existence,  so  remote  is  its 
sublimity  from  our  conceptions.  I  lay  down  the  book 
and  go  to  my  well  for  water,  and  lo!  there  I  meet  the 
servant  of  the  Bramin,  priest  of  Brahma  and  Vishnu  and 


THE   POND   IN  WINTER  329 

Indra,  who  still  sits  in  his  temple  on  the  Ganges  reading 
the  Vedas,  or  dwells  at  the  root  of  a  tree  with  his  crust 
and  water  jug.  I  meet  his  servant  come  to  draw  water 
for  his  master,  and  our  buckets  as  it  were  grate  together 
in  the  same  well.  The  pure  Walden  water  is  mingled 
with  the  sacred  water  of  the  Ganges.  With  favoring  winds 
it  is  wafted  past  the  site  of  the  fabulous  islands  of  At 
lantis  and  the  Hesperides,  makes  the  periplus  of  Hanno, 
and,  floating  by  Ternate  and  Tidore  and  the  mouth  of 
the  Persian  Gulf,  melts  in  the  tropic  gales  of  the  Indian 
seas,  and  is  landed  in  ports  of  which  Alexander  only 
heard  the  names. 


XVII 
SPRING 

A  HE  opening  of  large  tracts  by  the  ice-cutters  com 
monly  causes  a  pond  to  break  up  earlier;  for  the  water, 
agitated  by  the  wind,  even  in  cold  weather,  wears  away 
the  surrounding  ice.  But  such  was  not  the  effect  on 
Walden  that  year,  for  she  had  soon  got  a  thick  new 
garment  to  take  the  place  of  the  old.  This  pond  never 
breaks  up  so  soon  as  the  others  in  this  neighborhood, 
on  account  both  of  its  greater  depth  and  its  having  no 
stream  passing  through  it  to  melt  or  wear  away  the  ice. 
I  never  knew  it  to  open  in  the  course  of  a  winter,  not 
excepting  that  of  '52-3,  which  gave  the  ponds  so  severe 
a  trial.  It  commonly  opens  about  the  first  of  April,  a 
week  or  ten  days  later  than  Flint's  Pond  and  Fair 
Haven,  beginning  to  melt  on  the  north  side  and  in  the 
shallower  parts  where  it  began  to  freeze.  It  indicates 
better  than  any  water  hereabouts  the  absolute  progress 
of  the  season,  being  least  affected  by  transient  changes 
of  temperature.  A  severe  cold  of  a  few  days'  duration 
in  March  may  very  much  retard  the  opening  of  the 
former  ponds,  while  the  temperature  of  Walden  in 
creases  almost  uninterruptedly.  A  thermometer  thrust 
into  the  middle  of  Walden  on  the  6th  of  March,  1847, 
stood  at  32°,  or  freezing  point;  near  the  shore  at  33°; 
in  the  middle  of  Flint's  Pond,  the  same  day,  at 


SPRING  331 

at  a  dozen  rods  from  the  shore,  in  shallow  water,  under 
ice  a  foot  thick,  at  36°.  This  difference  of  three  and  a 
half  degrees  between  the  temperature  of  the  deep  water 
and  the  shallow  in  the  latter  pond,  and  the  fact  that  a 
great  proportion  of  it  is  comparatively  shallow,  show 
why  it  should  break  up  so  much  sooner  than  Walden. 
The  ice  in  the  shallowest  part  was  at  this  time  several 
inches  thinner  than  in  the  middle.  In  midwinter  the 
middle  had  been  the  warmest  and  the  ice  thinnest  there. 
So,  also,  every  one  who  has  waded  about  the  shores 
of  a  pond  in  summer  must  have  perceived  how  much 
warmer  the  water  is  close  to  the  shore,  where  only  three 
or  four  inches  deep,  than  a  little  distance  out,  and  on 
the  surface  where  it  is  deep,  than  near  the  bottom.  In 
spring  the  sun  not  only  exerts  an  influence  through 
the  increased  temperature  of  the  air  and  earth,  but  its 
heat  passes  through  ice  a  foot  or  more  thick,  and  is  re 
flected  from  the  bottom  in  shallow  water,  and  so  also 
warms  the  water  and  melts  the  under  side  of  the  ice,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  is  melting  it  more  directly  above, 
making  it  uneven,  and  causing  the  air  bubbles  which 
it  contains  to  extend  themselves  upward  and  down 
ward  until  it  is  completely  honeycombed,  and  at  last 
disappears  suddenly  in  a  single  spring  rain.  Ice  has  its 
grain  as  well  as  wood,  and  when  a  cake  begins  to  rot  or 
"  comb,"  that  is,  assume  the  appearance  of  honeycomb, 
whatever  may  be  its  position,  the  air  cells  are  at  right 
angles  with  what  was  the  water  surface.  Where  there 
is  a  rock  or  a  log  rising  near  to  the  surface  the  ice  over 
it  is  much  thinner,  and  is  frequently  quite  dissolved  by 
this  reflected  heat;  and  I  have  been  told  that  in  the 


332  WALDEN 

experiment  at  Cambridge  to  freeze  water  in  a  shallow 
wooden  pond,  though  the  cold  air  circulated  under 
neath,  and  so  had  access  to  both  sides,  the  reflection  of 
the  sun  from  the  bottom  more  than  counterbalanced 
this  advantage.  When  a  warm  rain  in  the  middle  of  the 
winter  melts  off  the  snow  ice  from  Walden,  and  leaves  a 
hard  dark  or  transparent  ice  on  the  middle,  there  will  be 
a  strip  of  rotten  though  thicker  white  ice,  a  rod  or  more 
wide,  about  the  shores,  created  by  this  reflected  heat. 
Also,  as  I  have  said,  the  bubbles  themselves  within  the 
ice  operate  as  burning-glasses  to  melt  the  ice  beneath. 

The  phenomena  of  the  year  take  place  every  day  in 
a  pond  on  a  small  scale.  Every  morning,  generally  speak 
ing,  the  shallow  water  is  being  warmed  more  rapidly 
than  the  deep,  though  it  may  not  be  made  so  warm  after 
all,  and  every  evening  it  is  being  cooled  more  rapidly 
until  the  morning.  The  day  is  an  epitome  of  the  year. 
The  night  is  the  winter,  the  morning  and  evening  are 
the  spring  and  fall,  and  the  noon  is  the  summer.  The 
cracking  and  booming  of  the  ice  indicate  a  change  of 
temperature.  One  pleasant  morning  after  a  cold  night, 
February  24th,  1850,  having  gone  to  Flint's  Pond  to 
spend  the  day,  I  noticed  with  surprise,  that  when  I 
struck  the  ice  with  the  head  of  my  axe,  it  resounded  like 
a  gong  for  many  rods  around,  or  as  if  I  had  struck  on  a 
tight  drum-head.  The  pond  began  to  boom  about  an 
hour  after  sunrise,  when  it  felt  the  influence  of  the  sun's 
rays  slanted  upon  it  from  over  the  hills;  it  stretched 
itself  and  yawned  like  a  waking  man  with  a  gradually 
increasing  tumult,  which  was  kept  up  three  or  four 
hours.  It  took  a  short  siesta  at  noon,  and  boomed  once 


SPRING  333 

more  toward  night,  as  the  sun  was  withdrawing  his  in 
fluence.  In  the  right  stage  of  the  weather  a  pond  fires 
its  evening  gun  with  great  regularity.  But  in  the  middle 
of  the  day,  being  full  of  cracks,  and  the  air  also  being 
less  elastic,  it  had  completely  lost  its  resonance,  and 
probably  fishes  and  muskrats  could  not  then  have  been 
stunned  by  a  blow  on  it.  The  fishermen  say  that  the 
"thundering  of  the  pond"  scares  the  fishes  and  pre 
vents  their  biting.  The  pond  does  not  thunder  every 
evening,  and  I  cannot  tell  surely  when  to  expect  its 
thundering;  but  though  I  may  perceive  no  difference  in 
the  weather,  it  does.  Who  would  have  suspected  so 
large  and  cold  and  thick-skinned  a  thing  to  be  so  sen 
sitive  ?  Yet  it  has  its  law  to  which  it  thunders  obedience 
when  it  should  as  surely  as  the  buds  expand  in  the 
spring.  The  earth  is  all  alive  and  covered  with  papillae. 
The  largest  pond  is  as  sensitive  to  atmospheric  changes 
as  the  globule  of  mercury  in  its  tube. 

One  attraction  in  coming  to  the  woods  to  live  was 
that  I  should  have  leisure  and  opportunity  to  see  the 
Spring  come  in.  The  ice  in  the  pond  at  length  begins 
to  be  honeycombed,  and  I  can  set  my  heel  in  it  as  I 
walk.  Fogs  and  rains  and  warmer  suns  are  gradually 
melting  the  snow;  the  days  have  grown  sensibly  longer; 
and  I  see  how  I  shall  get  through  the  winter  without 
adding  to  my  wood-pile,  for  large  fires  are  no  longer 
necessary.  I  am  on  the  alert  for  the  first  signs  of  spring, 
to  hear  the  chance  note  of  some  arriving  bird,  or  the 
striped  squirrel's  chirp,  for  his  stores  must  be  now  nearly 
exhausted,  or  see  the  woodchuck  venture  out  of  his 
winter  quarters.  On  the  13th  of  March,  after  I  had 


334  WALDEN 

heard  the  bluebird,  song  sparrow,  and  red-wing,  the 
ice  was  still  nearly  a  foot  thick.  As  the  weather  grew 
warmer  it  was  not  sensibly  worn  away  by  the  water, 
nor  broken  up  and  floated  off  as  in  rivers,  but,  though 
it  was  completely  melted  for  half  a  rod  in  width  about 
the  shore,  the  middle  was  merely  honeycombed  and 
saturated  with  water,  so  that  you  could  put  your  foot 
through  it  when  six  inches  thick;  but  by  the  next  day 
evening,  perhaps,  after  a  warm  rain  followed  by  fog, 
it  would  have  wholly  disappeared,  all  gone  off  with  the 
fog,  spirited  away.  One  year  I  went  across  the  middle 
only  five  days  before  it  disappeared  entirely.  In  1845 
Walden  was  first  completely  open  on  the  1st  of  April; 
in  '46,  the  25th  of  March;  in  '47,  the  8th  of  April;  in 
'51,  the  28th  of  March;  in  '52,  the  18th  of  April;  in  '53, 
the  23d  of  March;  in  '54,  about  the  7th  of  April. 

Every  incident  connected  with  the  breaking  up  of  the 
rivers  and  ponds  and  the  settling  of  the  weather  is 
particularly  interesting  to  us  who  live  in  a  climate  of 
so  great  extremes.  When  the  warmer  days  come,  they 
who  dwell  near  the  river  hear  the  ice  crack  at  night 
with  a  startling  whoop  as  loud  as  artillery,  as  if  its  icy 
fetters  were  rent  from  end  to  end,  and  within  a  few  days 
see  it  rapidly  going  out.  So  the  alligator  comes  out  of 
the  mud  with  quakings  of  the  earth.  One  old  man,  who 
has  been  a  close  observer  of  Nature,  and  seems  as 
thoroughly  wise  in  regard  to  all  her  operations  as  if  she 
had  been  put  upon  the  stocks  when  he  was  a  boy,  and 
he  had  helped  to  lay  her  keel,  —  who  has  come  to  his 
growth,  and  can  hardly  acquire  more  of  natural  lore 
if  he  should  live  to  the  age  of  Methuselah,  —  told  me  — - 


SPRING  335 

and  I  was  surprised  to  hear  him  express  wonder  at  any 
of  Nature's  operations,  for  I  thought  that  there  were 
no  secrets  between  them  —  that  one  spring  day  he  took 
his  gun  and  boat,  and  thought  that  he  would  have  a 
little  sport  with  the  ducks.  There  was  ice  still  on  the 
meadows,  but  it  was  all  gone  out  of  the  river,  and  he 
dropped  down  without  obstruction  from  Sudbury, 
where  he  lived,  to  Fair  Haven  Pond,  which  he  found, 
unexpectedly,  covered  for  the  most  part  with  a  firm 
field  of  ice.  It  was  a  warm  day,  and  he  was  surprised  to 
see  so  great  a  body  of  ice  remaining.  Not  seeing  any 
ducks,  he  hid  his  boat  on  the  north  or  back  side  of  an 
island  in  the  pond,  and  then  concealed  himself  in  the 
bushes  on  the  south  side,  to  await  them.  The  ice  was 
melted  for  three  or  four  rods  from  the  shore,  and  there 
was  a  smooth  and  warm  sheet  of  water,  with  a  muddy 
bottom,  such  as  the  ducks  love,  within,  and  he  thought 
it  likely  that  some  would  be  along  pretty  soon.  After 
he  had  lain  still  there  about  an  hour  he  heard  a  low 
and  seemingly  very  distant  sound,  but  singularly  grand 
and  impressive,  unlike  anything  he  had  ever  heard, 
gradually  swelling  and  increasing  as  if  it  would  have  a 
universal  and  memorable  ending,  a  sullen  rush  and 
roar,  which  seemed  to  him  all  at  once  like  the  sound  of 
a  vast  body  of  fowl  coming  in  to  settle  there,  and,  seiz 
ing  his  gun,  he  started  up  in  haste  and  excited;  but  he 
found,  to  his  surprise,  that  the  whole  body  of  the  ice 
had  started  while  he  lay  there,  and  drifted  in  to  the 
shore,  and  the  sound  he  had  heard  was  made  by  its 
edge  grating  on  the  shore,  —  at  first  gently  nibbled  and 
crumbled  off,  but  at  length  heaving  up  and  scattering 


336  WALDEN 

its  wrecks  along  the  island  to  a  considerable  height 
before  it  came  to  a  standstill. 

At  length  the  sun's  rays  have  attained  the  right  angle, 
and  warm  winds  blow  up  mist  and  rain  and  melt  the 
snowbanks,  and  the  sun,  dispersing  the  mist,  smiles  on  a 
checkered  landscape  of  russet  and  white  smoking  with 
incense,  through  which  the  traveller  picks  his  way 
from  islet  to  islet,  cheered  by  the  music  of  a  thousand 
tinkling  rills  and  rivulets  whose  veins  are  filled  with  the 
blood  of  winter  which  they  are  bearing  off. 

Few  phenomena  gave  me  more  delight  than  to  observe 
the  forms  which  thawing  sand  and  clay  assume  in  flow 
ing  down  the  sides  of  a  deep  cut  on  the  railroad  through 
which  I  passed  on  my  way  to  the  village,  a  phenomenon 
not  very  common  on  so  large  a  scale,  though  the  num 
ber  of  freshly  exposed  banks  of  the  right  material  must 
have  been  greatly  multiplied  since  railroads  were  in 
vented.  The  material  was  sand  of  every  degree  of  fine 
ness  and  of  various  rich  colors,  commonly  mixed  with 
a  little  clay.  When  the  frost  comes  out  in  the  spring,  and 
even  in  a  thawing  day  in  the  winter,  the  sand  begins  to 
flow  down  the  slopes  like  lava,  sometimes  bursting  out 
through  the  snow  and  overflowing  it  where  no  sand 
was  to  be  seen  before.  Innumerable  little  streams  over 
lap  and  interlace  one  with  another,  exhibiting  a  sort  of 
hybrid  product,  which  obeys  half  way  the  law  of  cur 
rents,  and  half  way  that  of  vegetation.  As  it  flows  it 
takes  the  forms  of  sappy  leaves  or  vines,  making  heaps 
of  pulpy  sprays  a  foot  or  more  in  depth,  and  resembling, 
as  you  look  down  on  them,  the  laciniated,  lobed,  and 
imbricated  thalluses  of  some  lichens;  or  you  are  re- 


SPRING  337 

minded  of  coral,  of  leopards'  paws  or  birds'  feet,  of 
brains  or  lungs  or  bowels,  and  excrements  of  all  kinds. 
It  is  a  truly  grotesque  vegetation,  whose  forms  and  color 
we  see  imitated  in  bronze,  a  sort  of  architectural  foliage 
more  ancient  and  typical  than  acanthus,  chiccory,  ivy, 
vine,  or  any  vegetable  leaves;  destined  perhaps,  under 
some  circumstances,  to  become  a  puzzle  to  future 
geologists.  The  whole  cut  impressed  me  as  if  it  were  a 
cave  with  its  stalactites  laid  open  to  the  light.  The  va 
rious  shades  of  the  sand  are  singularly  rich  and  agree 
able,  embracing  the  different  iron  colors,  brown,  gray, 
yellowish,  and  reddish.  When  the  flowing  mass  reaches 
the  drain  at  the  foot  of  the  bank  it  spreads  out  flatter 
into  strands,  the  separate  streams  losing  their  semi- 
cylindrical  form  and  gradually  becoming  more  flat  and 
broad,  running  together  as  they  are  more  moist,  till  they 
form  an  almost  flat  sand,  still  variously  and  beautifully 
shaded,  but  in  which  you  can  trace  the  original  forms 
of  vegetation ;  till  at  length,  in  the  water  itself,  they  are 
converted  into  banks,  like  those  formed  off  the  mouths 
of  rivers,  and  the  forms  of  vegetation  are  lost  in  the 
ripple-marks  on  the  bottom. 

The  whole  bank,  which  is  from  twenty  to  forty  feet 
high,  is  sometimes  overlaid  with  a  mass  of  this  kind  of 
foliage,  or  sandy  rupture,  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on  one 
or  both  sides,  the  produce  of  one  spring  day.  What 
makes  this  sand  foliage  remarkable  is  its  springing  into 
existence  thus  suddenly.  When  I  see  on  the  one  side 
the  inert  bank,  —  for  the  sun  acts  on  one  side  first,  — 
end  on  the  other  this  luxuriant  foliage,  the  creation  of 
an  hour,  I  am  affected  as  if  in  a  peculiar  sense  I  stood 


338  WALDEN 

in  the  laboratory  of  the  Artist  who  made  the  world  and 
me,  —  had  come  to  where  he  was  still  at  work,  sporting 
on  this  bank,  and  with  excess  of  energy  strewing  his 
fresh  designs  about.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  nearer  to  the 
vitals  of  the  globe,  for  this  sandy  overflow  is  something 
such  a  foliaceous  mass  as  the  vitals  of  the  animal  body. 
You  find  thus  in  the  very  sands  an  anticipation  of  the 
vegetable  leaf.  No  wonder  that  the  earth  expresses 
itself  outwardly  in  leaves,  it  so  labors  with  the  idea  in 
wardly.  The  atoms  have  already  learned  this  law,  and 
are  pregnant  by  it.  The  overhanging  leaf  sees  here  its 
prototype.  Internally,  whether  in  the  globe  or  animal 
body,  it  is  a  moist  thick  lobe,  a  word  especially  applicable 
to  the  liver  and  lungs  and  the  leaves  of  fat  (\€LJ3<i>,  labor, 
lapsus,  to  flow  or  slip  downward,  a  lapsing;  \o/36$,  globus, 
lobe,  globe;  also  lap,  flap,  and  many  other  words);  ex 
ternally,  a  dry  thin  leaf,  even  as  the  /  and  v  are  a  pressed 
and  dried  b.  The  radicals  of  lobe  are  Ib,  the  soft  mass  of 
the  6  (single-lobed,  or  B,  double-lobed),  with  the  liquid  / 
behind  it  pressing  it  forward.  In  globe,  gib,  the  guttural 
g  adds  to  the  meaning  the  capacity  of  the  throat.  The 
feathers  and  wings  of  birds  are  still  drier  and  thinner 
leaves.  Thus,  also,  you  pass  from  the  lumpish  grub  in 
the  earth  to  the  airy  and  fluttering  butterfly.  The  very 
globe  continually  transcends  and  translates  itself,  and 
becomes  winged  in  its  orbit.  Even  ice  begins  with  deli 
cate  crystal  leaves,  as  if  it  had  flowed  into  moulds  which 
the  fronds  of  water-plants  have  impressed  on  the  watery 
mirror.  The  whole  tree  itself  is  but  one  leaf,  and  rivers 
are  still  vaster  leaves  whose  pulp  is  intervening  earth, 
and  towns  and  cities  are  the  ova  of  insects  in  their  axils. 


SPRING  339 

When  the  sun  withdraws  the  sand  ceases  to  flow, 
but  in  the  morning  the  streams  will  start  once  more  and 
branch  and  branch  again  into  a  myriad  of  others.  You 
here  see  perchance  how  blood-vessels  are  formed.  If  you 
look  closely  you  observe  that  first  there  pushes  forward 
from  the  thawing  mass  a  stream  of  softened  sand  with 
a  drop-like  point,  like  the  ball  of  the  finger,  feeling  its 
way  slowly  and  blindly  downward,  until  at  last  with 
more  heat  and  moisture,  as  the  sun  gets  higher,  the 
most  fluid  portion,  in  its  effort  to  obey  the  law  to  which 
the  most  inert  also  yields,  separates  from  the  latter 
and  forms  for  itself  a  meandering  channel  or  artery 
within  that,  in  which  is  seen  a  little  silvery  stream  glanc 
ing  like  lightning  from  one  stage  of  pulpy  leaves  or 
branches  to  another,  and  ever  and  anon  swallowed  up 
in  the  sand.  It  is  wonderful  how  rapidly  yet  perfectly 
the  sand  organizes  itself  as  it  flows,  using  the  best 
material  its  mass  affords  to  form  the  sharp  edges  of  its 
channel.  Such  are  the  sources  of  rivers.  In  the  silicious 
matter  which  the  water  deposits  is  perhaps  the  bony 
system,  and  in  the  still  finer  soil  and  organic  matter  the 
fleshy  fibre  or  cellular  tissue.  What  is  man  but  a  mass 
of  thawing  clay  ?  The  ball  of  the  human  finger  is  but  a 
drop  congealed.  The  fingers  and  toes  flow  to  their  ex 
tent  from  the  thawing  mass  of  the  body.  WTho  knows 
what  the  human  body  would  expand  and  flow  out  to 
under  a  more  genial  heaven  ?  Is  not  the  hand  a  spread 
ing  palm  leaf  with  its  lobes  and  veins  ?  The  ear  may  be 
regarded,  fancifully,  as  a  lichen,  Umbilicaria,  on  the 
side  of  the  head,  with  its  lobe  or  drop.  The  lip  — 
labium,  from  labor  (?)  —  laps  or  lapses  from  the  sides 


340  WALDEN 

of  the  cavernous  mouth.  The  nose  is  a  manifest  con 
gealed  drop  or  stalactite.  The  chin  is  a  still  larger  drop, 
the  confluent  dripping  of  the  face.  The  cheeks  are  a 
slide  from  the  brows  into  the  valley  of  the  face,  opposed 
and  diffused  by  the  cheek  bones.  Each  rounded  lobe 
of  the  vegetable  leaf,  too,  is  a  thick  and  now  loitering 
drop,  larger  or  smaller;  the  lobes  are  the  fingers  of  the 
leaf;  and  as  many  lobes  as  it  has,  in  so  many  directions 
it  tends  to  flow,  and  more  heat  or  other  genial  influences 
would  have  caused  it  to  flow  yet  farther. 

Thus  it  seemed  that  this  one  hillside  illustrated  the 
principle  of  all  the  operations  of  Nature.  The  Maker 
of  this  earth  but  patented  a  leaf.  What  Champollion 
will  decipher  this  hieroglyphic  for  us,  that  we  may  turn 
over  a  new  leaf  at  last?  This  phenomenon  is  more 
exhilarating  to  me  than  the  luxuriance  and  fertility  of 
vineyards.  True,  it  is  somewhat  excrementitious  in  its 
character,  and  there  is  no  end  to  the  heaps  of  liver, 
lights,  and  bowels,  as  if  the  globe  were  turned  wrong 
side  outward ;  but  this  suggests  at  least  that  Nature  has 
some  bowels,  and  there  again  is  mother  of  humanity. 
This  is  the  frost  coming  out  of  the  ground;  this  is 
Spring.  It  precedes  the  green  and  flowery  spring,  as 
mythology  precedes  regular  poetry.  I  know  of  nothing 
more  purgative  of  winter  fumes  and  indigestions.  It 
convinces  me  that  Earth  is  still  in  her  swaddling- 
clothes,  and  stretches  forth  baby  fingers  on  every  side. 
Fresh  curls  spring  from  the  baldest  brow.  There  is  no 
thing  inorganic.  These  foliaceous  heaps  lie  along  the 
bank  like  the  slag  of  a  furnace,  showing  that  Nature 
is  "  in  full  blast "  within.  The  earth  is  not  a  mere  frag- 


SPRING  341 

ment  of  dead  history,  stratum  upon  stratum  like  the 
leaves  of  a  book,  to  be  studied  by  geologists  and  anti 
quaries  chiefly,  but  living  poetry  like  the  leaves  of  a 
tree,  which  precede  flowers  and  fruit,  —  not  a  fossil 
earth,  but  a  living  earth;  compared  with  whose  great 
central  life  all  animal  and  vegetable  life  is  merely  para 
sitic.  Its  throes  will  heave  our  exuviae  from  their  graves. 
You  may  melt  your  metals  and  cast  them  into  the  most 
beautiful  moulds  you  can;  they  will  never  excite  me 
like  the  forms  which  this  molten  earth  flows  out  into. 
And  not  only  it,  but  the  institutions  upon  it  are  plastic 
like  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter. 

Ere  long,  not  only  on  these  banks,  but  on  every  hill 
and  plain  and  in  every  hollow,  the  frost  comes  out  of  the 
ground  like  a  dormant  quadruped  from  its  burrow, 
and  seeks  the  sea  with  music,  or  migrates  to  other 
climes  in  clouds.  Thaw  with  his  gentle  persuasion  is 
more  powerful  than  Thor  with  his  hammer.  The  one 
melts,  the  other  but  breaks  in  pieces. 

When  the  ground  was  partially  bare  of  snow,  and  a 
few  warm  days  had  dried  its  surface  somewhat,  it  was 
pleasant  to  compare  the  first  tender  signs  of  the  infant 
year  just  peeping  forth  with  the  stately  beauty  of  the 
withered  vegetation  which  had  withstood  the  winter,  — 
life-everlasting,  goldenrods,  pinweeds,  and  graceful  wild 
grasses,  more  obvious  and  interesting  frequently  than 
in  summer  even,  as  if  their  beauty  was  not  ripe  till 
then  ;  even  cotton-grass,  cat-tails,  mulleins,  johnswort, 
hardhack,  meadow-sweet,  and  other  strong-stemmed 
plants,  those  unexhausted  granaries  which  entertain 
the  earliest  birds,  —  decent  weeds,  at  least,  which 


342  WALDEN 

widowed  Nature  wears.  I  am  particularly  attracted 
by  the  arching  and  sheaf -like  top  of  the  wool -grass; 
it  brings  back  the  summer  to  our  winter  memories, 
and  is  among  the  forms  which  art  loves  to  copy,  and 
which,  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  have  the  same  relation 
to  types  already  in  the  mind  of  man  that  astronomy 
has.  It  is  an  antique  style,  older  than  Greek  or  Egyp 
tian.  Many  of  the  phenomena  of  Winter  are  suggestive 
of  an  inexpressible  tenderness  and  fragile  delicacy. 
We  are  accustomed  to  hear  this  king  described  as  a  rude 
and  boisterous  tyrant ;  but  with  the  gentleness  of  a 
lover  he  adorns  the  tresses  of  Summer. 

At  the  approach  of  spring  the  red  squirrels  got  under 
my  house,  two  at  a  time,  directly  under  IT  /  feet  as  I  sat 
reading  or  writing,  and  kept  up  the  queerest  chuckling 
and  chirruping  and  vocal  pirouetting  and  gurgling 
sounds  that  ever  were  heard;  and  when  I  stamped 
they  only  chirruped  the  louder,  as  if  past  all  fear  and 
respect  in  their  mad  pranks,  defying  humanity  to  stop 
them.  No,  you  don't  —  chickaree  —  chickaree.  They 
were  wholly  deaf  to  my  arguments,  or  failed  to  perceive 
their  force,  and  fell  into  a  strain  of  invective  that  was 
irresistible. 

The  first  sparrow  of  spring !  The  year  beginning  with 
younger  hope  than  ever!  The  faint  silvery  warblings 
heard  over  the  partially  bare  and  moist  fields  from  the 
bluebird,  the  song  sparrow,  and  the  red-wing,  as  if  the 
last  flakes  of  winter  tinkled  as  they  fell !  What  at  such 
a  time  are  histories,  chronologies,  traditions,  and  all 
written  revelations  ?  The  brooks  sing  carols  and  glees 
to  the  spring.  The  marsh  hawk,  sailing  low  over  the 


SPRING  343 

meadow,  is  already  seeking  the  first  slimy  life  that 
awakes.  The  sinking  sound  of  melting  snow  is  heard  in 
all  dells,  and  the  ice  dissolves  apace  in  the  ponds.  The 
grass  flames  up  on  the  hillsides  like  a  spring  fire,  -  "  et 
primitus  oritur  herba  imbribus  primoribus  evocata," 
—  as  if  the  earth  sent  forth  an  inward  heat  to  greet  the 
returning  sun;  not  yellow  but  green  is  the  color  of  its 
flame ;  —  the  symbol  of  perpetual  youth,  the  grass-blade, 
like  a  long  green  ribbon,  streams  from  the  sod  into  the 
summer,  checked  indeed  by  the  frost,  but  anon  pushing 
on  again,  lifting  its  spear  of  last  year's  hay  with  the 
fresh  life  below.  It  grows  as  steadily  as  the  rill  oozes 
out  of  the  ground.  It  is  almost  identical  with  that,  for 
in  the  growing  days  of  June,  when  the  rills  are  dry,  the 
grass-blades  are  their  channels,  and  from  year  to  year 
the  herds  drink  at  this  perennial  green  stream,  and  the 
mower  draws  from  it  betimes  their  winter  supply.  So 
our  human  life  but  dies  down  to  its  root,  and  still  puts 
forth  its  green  blade  to  eternity. 

Walden  is  melting  apace.  There  is  a  canal  two  rods 
wide  along  the  northerly  and  westerly  sides,  and  wider 
still  at  the  east  end.  A  great  field  of  ice  has  cracked  off 
from  the  main  body.  I  hear  a  song  sparrow  singing 
from  the  bushes  on  the  shore,  —  olit,  olit,  olit,  —  chip, 
chip,  chip,  che  char,  —  che  wiss,  wiss,  wiss.  He  too  is 
helping  to  crack  it.  How  handsome  the  great  sweeping 
curves  in  the  edge  of  the  ice,  answering  somewhat  to 
those  of  the  shore,  but  more  regular  !  It  is  unusually 
hard,  owing  to  the  recent  severe  but  transient  cold,  and 
all  watered  or  waved  like  a  palace  floor.  But  the  wind 
slides  eastward  over  its  opaque  surface  in  vain,  till  it 


344  WALDEN 

reaches  the  living  surface  beyond.  It  is  glorious  to  be 
hold  this  ribbon  of  water  sparkling  in  the  sun,  the  bare 
face  of  the  pond  full  of  glee  and  youth,  as  if  it  spoke  the 
joy  of  the  fishes  within  it,  and  of  the  sands  on  its  shore, 
—  a  silvery  sheen  as  from  the  scales  of  a  leuciscus,  as  it 
were  all  one  active  fish.  Such  is  the  contrast  between 
winter  and  spring.  Walden  was  dead  and  is  alive  again. 
But  this  spring  it  broke  up  more  steadily,  as  I  have  said. 
The  change  from  storm  and  winter  to  serene  and  mild 
weather,  from  dark  and  sluggish  hours  to  bright  and 
elastic  ones,  is  a  memorable  crisis  which  all  things  pro 
claim.  It  is  seemingly  instantaneous  at  last.  Suddenly  an 
influx  of  light  filled  my  house,  though  the  evening  was  at 
hand,  and  the  clouds  of  winter  still  overhung  it,  and  the 
eaves  were  dripping  with  sleety  rain.  I  looked  out  the 
window,  and  lo !  where  yesterday  was  cold  gray  ice  there 
lay  the  transparent  pond  already  calm  and  full  of  hope 
as  in  a  summer  evening,  reflecting  a  summer  evening 
sky  in  its  bosom,  though  none  was  visible  overhead,  as  if 
it  had  intelligence  with  some  remote  horizon.  I  heard  a 
robin  in  the  distance,  the  first  I  had  heard  for  many  a 
thousand  years,  methought,  whose  note  I  shall  not  for 
get  for  many  a  thousand  more,  —  the  same  sweet  and 
powerful  song  as  of  yore.  O  the  evening  robin,  at  the 
end  of  a  New  England  summer  day !  If  I  could  ever  find 
the  twig  he  sits  upon !  I  mean  he;  I  mean  the  twig.  This 
at  least  is  not  the  Turdus  migratorius.  The  pitch  pines 
and  shrub  oaks  about  my  house,  which  had  so  long 
drooped,  suddenly  resumed  their  several  characters, 
looked  brighter,  greener,  and  more  erect  and  alive,  as  if 
effectually  cleansed  and  restored  by  the  rain.  I  knew 


SPRING  345 

that  it  would  not  rain  any  more.  You  may  tell  by  look 
ing  at  any  twig  of  the  forest,  ay,  at  your  very  wood-pile, 
whether  its  winter  is  past  or  not.  As  it  grew  darker,  I  was 
startled  by  the  honking  of  geese  flying  low  over  the  woods, 
like  weary  travellers  getting  in  late  from  Southern  lakes, 
and  indulging  at  last  in  unrestrained  complaint  and 
mutual  consolation.  Standing  at  my  door,  I  could  hear 
the  rush  of  their  wings;  when,  driving  toward  my  house, 
they  suddenly  spied  my  light,  and  with  hushed  clamor 
wheeled  and  settled  in  the  pond.  So  I  came  in,  and  shut 
the  door,  and  passed  my  first  spring  night  in  the  woods. 

In  the  morning  I  watched  the  geese  from  the  door 
through  the  mist,  sailing  in  the  middle  of  the  pond,  fifty 
rods  off ,  so  large  and  tumultuous  that  Walden  appeared 
like  an  artificial  pond  for  their  amusement.  But  when 
I  stood  on  the  shore  they  at  once  rose  up  with  a  great 
flapping  of  wings  at  the  signal  of  their  commander,  and 
when  they  had  got  into  rank  circled  about  over  my 
head,  twenty-nine  of  them,  and  then  steered  straight 
to  Canada,  with  a  regular  honk  from  the  leader  at  in 
tervals,  trusting  to  break  their  fast  in  muddier  pools.  A 
"  plump  "  of  ducks  rose  at  the  same  time  and  took  the 
route  to  the  north  in  the  wake  of  their  noisier  cousins. 

For  a  week  I  heard  the  circling,  groping  clangor  of 
some  solitary  goose  in  the  foggy  mornings,  seeking  its 
companion,  and  still  peopling  the  woods  with  the  sound 
of  a  larger  life  than  they  could  sustain.  In  April  the 
pigeons  were  seen  again  flying  express  in  small  flocks, 
and  in  due  time  I  heard  the  martins  twittering  over  my 
clearing,  though  it  had  not  seemed  that  the  township 
contained  so  many  that  it  could  afford  me  any,  and  I 


346  WALDEN 

fancied  that  they  were  peculiarly  of  the  ancient  race  that 
dwelt  in  hollow  trees  ere  white  men  came.  In  almost 
all  climes  the  tortoise  and  the  frog  are  among  the  pre 
cursors  and  heralds  of  this  season,  and  birds  fly  with 
song  and  glancing  plumage,  and  plants  spring  and  bloom, 
and  winds  blow,  to  correct  this  slight  oscillation  of  the 
poles  and  preserve  the  equilibrium  of  nature. 

As  every  season  seems  best  to  us  in  its  turn,  so  the 
coming  in  of  spring  is  like  the  creation  of  Cosmos  out  of 
Chaos  and  the  realization  of  the  Golden  Age.  — 

"  Bums  ad  Auroram  Nabathaeaque  regna  recessit, 
Persidaque,  et  radiis  juga  subdita  matutinis." 

"The  East- Wind  withdrew  to  Aurora  and  the  Nabathsean  kingdom, 
And  the  Persian,  and  the  ridges  placed  under  the  morning  rays. 

Man  was  born.    Whether  that  Artificer  of  things, 
The  origin  of  a  better  world,  made  him  from  the  divine  seed; 
Or  the  earth,  being  recent  and  lately  sundered  from  the  high 
Ether,  retained  some  seeds  of  cognate  heaven." 

A  single  gentle  rain  makes  the  grass  many  shades 
greener.  So  our  prospects  brighten  on  the  influx  of  bet 
ter  thoughts.  We  should  be  blessed  if  we  lived  in  the 
present  always,  and  took  advantage  of  every  accident 
that  befell  us,  like  the  grass  which  confesses  the  influence 
of  the  slightest  dew  that  falls  on  it;  and  did  not  spend 
our  time  in  atoning  for  the  neglect  of  past  opportu 
nities,  which  we  call  doing  our  duty.  We  loiter  in  winter 
while  it  is  already  spring.  In  a  pleasant  spring  morn 
ing  all  men's  sins  are  forgiven.  Such  a  day  is  a  truce  to 
vice.  While  such  a  sun  holds  out  to  burn,  the  vilest  sin 
ner  may  return.  Through  our  own  recovered  innocence 


SPRING  347 

we  discern  the  innocence  of  our  neighbors.  You  may 
have  known  your  neighbor  yesterday  for  a  thief,  a  drunk 
ard,  or  a  sensualist,  and  merely  pitied  or  despised  him, 
and  despaired  of  the  world ;  but  the  sun  shines  bright  and 
warm  this  first  spring  morning,  re-creating  the  world,  and 
you  meet  him  at  some  serene  work,  and  see  how  his 
exhausted  and  debauched  veins  expand  with  still  joy 
and  bless  the  new  day,  feel  the  spring  influence  with  the 
innocence  of  infancy,  and  all  his  faults  are  forgotten. 
There  is  not  only  an  atmosphere  of  good  will  about  him, 
but  even  a  savor  of  holiness  groping  for  expression, 
blindly  and  ineffectually  perhaps,  like  a  new-born  in 
stinct,  and  for  a  short  hour  the  south  hillside  echoes  to 
no  vulgar  jest.  You  see  some  innocent  fair  shoots  pre 
paring  to  burst  from  his  gnarled  rind  and  try  another 
year's  life,  tender  and  fresh  as  the  youngest  plant. 
Even  he  has  entered  into  the  joy  of  his  Lord.  Why  the 
jailer  does  not  leave  open  his  prison  doors,  —  why  the 
judge  does  not  dismiss  his  case,  —  why  the  preacher 
does  not  dismiss  his  congregation !  It  is  because  they  do 
not  obey  the  hint  which  God  gives  them,  nor  accept  the 
pardon  which  he  freely  offers  to  all. 

"  A  return  to  goodness  produced  each  day  in  the  tran 
quil  and  beneficent  breath  of  the  morning,  causes  that  in 
respect  to  the  love  of  virtue  and  the  hatred  of  vice,  one 
approaches  a  little  the  primitive  nature  of  man,  as  the 
sprouts  of  the  forest  which  has  been  felled.  In  like  man 
ner  the  evil  which  one  does  in  the  interval  of  a  day  pre 
vents  the  germs  of  virtues  which  began  to  spring  up  again 
from  developing  themselves  and  destroys  them. 

"  After  the  germs  of  virtue  have  thus  been  prevented 


348  WALDEN 

many  times  from  developing  themselves,  then  the  benefi 
cent  breath  of  evening  does  not  suffice  to  preserve  them. 
As  soon  as  the  breath  of  evening  does  not  suffice  longer 
to  preserve  them,  then  the  nature  of  man  does  not  differ 
much  from  that  of  the  brute.  Men  seeing  the  nature 
of  this  man  like  that  of  the  brute,  think  that  he  has 
never  possessed  the  innate  faculty  of  reason.  Are  those 
the  true  and  natural  sentiments  of  man  ?  "  \^  ^  • 

"  The  Golden  Age  was  first  created,  which  without  any  avenger 
Spontaneously  without  law  cherished  fidelity  and  rectitude. 
Punishment  and  fear  were  not;  nor  were  threatening  words  read 
On  suspended  brass;  nor  did  the  suppliant  crowd  fear 
The  words  of  their  judge;  but  were  safe  without  an  avenger. 
Not  yet  the  pine  felled  on  its  mountains  had  descended 
To  the  liquid  waves  that  it  might  see  a  foreign  world, 
And  mortals  knew  no  shores  but  their  own. 

There  was  eternal  spring,  and  placid  zephyrs  with  warm 
Blasts  soothed  the  flowers  born  without  seed." 

On  the  29th  of  April,  as  I  was  fishing  from  the  bank 
of  the  river  near  the  Nine-Acre-Corner  bridge,  standing 
on  the  quaking  grass  and  willow  roots,  where  the  musk- 
rats  lurk,  I  heard  a  singular  rattling  sound,  somewhat 
like  that  of  the  sticks  which  boys  play  with  their  fingers, 
when,  looking  up,  I  observed  a  very  slight  and  graceful 
hawk,  like  a  nighthawk,  alternately  soaring  like  a  ripple 
and  tumbling  a  rod  or  two  over  and  over,  showing 
the  under  side  of  its  wings,  which  gleamed  like  a  satin 
ribbon  in  the  sun,  or  like  the  pearly  inside  of  a  shell. 
This  sight  reminded  me  of  falconry  and  what  nobleness 
and  poetry  are  associated  with  that  sport.  The  merlin 
it  seemed  to  me  it  might  be  called :  but  I  care  not  for  its 


SPRING  349 

name.  It  was  the  most  ethereal  flight  I  had  ever  wit 
nessed.  It  did  not  simply  flutter  like  a  butterfly,  nor 
soar  like  the  larger  hawks,  but  it  sported  with  proud 
reliance  in  the  fields  of  air;  mounting  again  and  again 
with  its  strange  chuckle,  it  repeated  its  free  and  beauti 
ful  fall,  turning  over  and  over  like  a  kite,  and  then  re 
covering  from  its  lofty  tumbling,  as  if  it  had  never  set  its 
foot  on  terra  firma.  It  appeared  to  have  no  companion 
in  the  universe,  —  sporting  there  alone,  —  and  to  need 
none  but  the  morning  and  the  ether  with  which  it  played. 
It  was  not  lonely,  but  made  all  the  earth  lonely  beneath 
it.  Where  was  the  parent  which  hatched  it,  its  kindred, 
and  its  father  in  the  heavens  ?  The  tenant  of  the  air,  it 
seemed  related  to  the  earth  but  by  an  egg  hatched  some 
time  in  the  crevice  of  a  crag ;  —  or  was  its  native  nest 
made  in  the  angle  of  a  cloud,  woven  of  the  rainbow's 
trimmings  and  the  sunset  sky,  and  lined  with  some  soft 
midsummer  haze  caught  up  from  earth  ?  Its  eyry  now 
some  cliffy  cloud. 

Beside  this  I  got  a  rare  mess  of  golden  and  silver  and 
bright  cupreous  fishes,  which  looked  like  a  string  of 
jewels.  Ah !  I  have  penetrated  to  those  meadows  on  the 
morning  of  many  a  first  spring  day,  jumping  from  hum 
mock  to  hummock,  from  willow  root  to  willow  root, 
when  the  wild  river  valley  and  the  woods  were  bathed  in 
so  pure  and  bright  a  light  as  would  have  waked  the  dead, 
if  they  had  been  slumbering  in  their  graves,  as  some  sup* 
pose.  There  needs  no  stronger  proof  of  immortality.  All 
things  must  live  in  such  a  light.  O  Death,  where  was  thy 
sting  ?  O  Grave,  where  was  thy  victory,  then  ? 

Our  village  life  would  stagnate  if  it  were  not  for  the  un- 


350  WALDEN 

explored  forests  and  meadows  which  surround  it.  We 
need  the  tonic  of  wildness,  —  to  wade  sometimes  in 
marshes  where  the  bittern  and  the  meadow-hen  lurk, 
and  hear  the  booming  of  the  snipe ;  to  smell  the  whisper 
ing  sedge  where  only  some  wilder  and  more  solitary  fowl 
builds  her  nest,  and  the  mink  crawls  with  its  belly  close 
to  the  ground.  At  the  same  time  that  we  are  earnest  to 
explore  and  learn  all  things,  we  require  that  all  things  be 
mysterious  and  unexplorable,  that  land  and  sea  be  in 
finitely  wild,  unsurveyed  and  unfathomed  by  us  because 
unfathomable.  We  can  never  have  enough  of  nature. 
We  must  be  refreshed  by  the  sight  of  inexhaustible  vigor, 
vast  and  titanic  features,  the  sea-coast  with  its  wrecks, 
the  wilderness  with  its  living  and  its  decaying  trees,  the 
thunder-cloud,  and  the  rain  which  lasts  three  weeks  and 
produces  freshets.  We  need  to  witness  our  own  limits 
transgressed,  and  some  life  pasturing  freely  where  we 
never  wander.  We  are  cheered  when  we  observe  the  vul 
ture  feeding  on  the  carrion  which  disgusts  and  disheart 
ens  us,  and  deriving  health  and  strength  from  the  repast. 
There  was  a  dead  horse  in  the  hollow  by  the  path  to  my 
house,  which  compelled  me  sometimes  to  go  out  of  my 
way,  especially  in  the  night  when  the  air  was  heavy,  but 
the  assurance  it  gave  me  of  the  strong  appetite  and  in 
violable  health  of  Nature  was  my  compensation  for  this. 
I  love  to  see  that  Nature  is  so  rife  with  life  that  myriads 
can  be  afforded  to  be  sacrificed  and  suffered  to  prey  on 
one  another;  that  tender  organizations  can  be  so  serenely 
squashed  out  of  existence  like  pulp,  —  tadpoles  which 
herons  gobble  up,  and  tortoises  arid  toads  run  over  in  the 
road;  and  that  sometimes  it  has  rained  flesh  and  blood! 


SPRING  351 

With  the  liability  to  accident,  we  must  see  how  little  ac 
count  is  to  be  made  of  it.  The  impression  made  on  a  wise 
man  is  that  of  universal  innocence.  Poison  is  not  poison 
ous  after  all,  nor  are  any  wounds  fatal.  Compassion  is 
a  very  untenable  ground.  It  must  be  expeditious.  Its 
pleadings  will  not  bear  to  be  stereotyped. 

Early  in  May,  the  oaks,  hickories,  maples,  and  other 
trees,  just  putting  out  amidst  the  pine  woods  around  the 
pond,  imparted  a  brightness  like  sunshine  to  the  land 
scape,  especially  in  cloudy  days,  as  if  the  sun  were  break 
ing  through  mists  and  shining  faintly  on  the  hillsides 
here  and  there.  On  the  third  or  fourth  of  May  I  saw  a 
loon  in  the  pond,  and  during  the  first  week  of  the  month 
I  heard  the  whip-poor-will,  the  brown  thrasher,  the 
veery,  the  wood  pewee,  the  chewink,  and  other  birds.  I 
had  heard  the  wood  thrush  long  before.  The  phcebe  had 
already  come  once  more  and  looked  in  at  my  door  and 
window,  to  see  if  my  house  was  cavern-like  enough  for 
her,  sustaining  herself  on  humming  wings  with  clinched 
talons,  as  if  she  held  by  the  air,  while  she  surveyed  the 
premises.  The  sulphur-like  pollen  of  the  pitch  pine  soon 
covered  the  pond  and  the  stones  and  rotten  wood  along 
the  shore,  so  that  you  could  have  collected  a  barrelful. 
This  is  the  "  sulphur  showers "  we  hear  of.  Even  in 
Calidas'  drama  of  Sacontala,  we  read  of  "  rills  dyed  yel 
low  with  the  golden  dust  of  the  lotus."  And  so  the  sea 
sons  went  rolling  on  into  summer,  as  one  rambles  into 
higher  and  higher  grass. 

Thus  was  my  first  year's  life  in  the  woods  completed ; 
and  the  second  year  was  similar  to  it.  I  finally  left  Wai- 
den  September  6th,  1847. 


XVIII 
CONCLUSION 

Xo  the  sick  the  doctors  wisely  recommend  a  change 
of  air  and  scenery.  Thank  Heaven,  here  is  not  all  the 
world.  The  buckeye  does  not  grow  in  New  England, 
and  the  mockingbird  is  rarely  heard  here.  The  wild 
goose  is  more  of  a  cosmopolite  than  we;  he  breaks  his 
fast  in  Canada,  takes  a  luncheon  in  the  Ohio,  and 
plumes  himself  for  the  night  in  a  southern  bayou.  Even 
the  bison,  to  some  extent,  keeps  pace  with  the  seasons, 
cropping  the  pastures  of  the  Colorado  only  till  a  greener 
and  sweeter  grass  awaits  him  by  the  Yellowstone.  Yet 
we  think  that  if  rail  fences  are  pulled  down,  and  stone 
walls  piled  up  on  our  farms,  bounds  are  henceforth  set 
to  our  lives  and  our  fates  decided.  If  you  are  chosen 
town  clerk,  forsooth,  you  cannot  go  to  Tierra  del  Fuego 
this  summer:  but  you  may  go  to  the  land  of  infernal 
fire  nevertheless.  The  universe  is  wider  than  our  views 
of  it. 

Yet  we  should  oftener  look  over  the  tafferel  of  our 
craft,  like  curious  passengers,  and  not  make  the  voyage 
like  stupid  sailors  picking  oakum.  The  other  side  of  the 
globe  is  but  the  home  of  our  correspondent.  Our  voy 
aging  is  only  great-circle  sailing,  and  the  doctors  pre 
scribe  for  diseases  of  the  skin  merely.  One  hastens  to 
southern  Africa  to  chase  the  giraffe;  but  surely  that  is 


CONCLUSION  353 

not  the  game  he  would  be  after.  How  long,  pray,  would 
a  man  hunt  giraffes  if  he  could  ?  Snipes  and  woodcocks 
also  may  afford  rare  sport ;  but  I  trust  it  would  be  nobler 
game  to  shoot  one's  self.  — 

"Direct  your  eye  right  inward,  and  you'll  find 
A  thousand  regions  in  your  mind 
Yet  undiscovered.    Travel  them,  and  be 
Expert  in  home-cosmography." 

What  does  Africa,  —  what  does  the  West  stand  for  ?  Is 
not  our  own  interior  white  on  the  chart  ?  black  though 
it  may  prove,  like  the  coast,  when  discovered.  Is  it  the 
source  of  the  Nile,  or  the  Niger,  or  the  Mississippi,  or 
a  Northwest  Passage  around  this  continent,  that  we 
would  find  ?  Are  these  the  problems  which  most  concern 
mankind  ?  Is  Franklin  the  only  man  who  is  lost,  that  his 
wife  should  be  so  earnest  to  find  him  ?  Does  Mr.  Grin- 
nell  know  where  he  himself  is  ?  Be  rather  the  Mungo 
Park,  the  Lewis  and  Clark  and  Frobisher,  of  your  own 
streams  and  oceans ;  explore  your  own  higher  latitudes, 
—  with  shiploads  of  preserved  meats  to  support  you,  if 
they  be  necessary;  and  pile  the  empty  cans  sky-high  for 
a  sign.  Were  preserved  meats  invented  to  preserve  meat 
merely  ?  Nay,  be  a  Columbus  to  whole  new  continents 
and  worlds  within  you,  opening  new  channels,  not  of 
trade,  but  of  thought.  Every  man  is  the  lord  of  a  realm 
beside  which  the  earthly  empire  of  the  Czar  is  but  a  petty 
state,  a  hummock  left  by  the  ice.  Yet  some  can  be  pa 
triotic  who  have  no  self-respect,  and  sacrifice  the  greater 
to  the  less.  They  love  the  soil  which  makes  their  graves, 
but  have  no  sympathy  with  the  spirit  which  may  still 
animate  their  clay.  Patriotism  is  a  maggot  in  their  heads. 


354  WALDEN 

What  was  the  meaning  of  that  South-Sea  Exploring 
Expedition,  with  all  its  parade  and  expense,  but  an  in 
direct  recognition  of  the  fact  that  there  are  continents 
and  seas  in  the  moral  world  to  which  every  man  is  an 
isthmus  or  an  inlet,  yet  unexplored  by  him,  but  that  it  is 
easier  to  sail  many  thousand  miles  through  cold  and 
storm  and  cannibals,  in  a  government  ship,  with  five 
hundred  men  and  boys  to  assist  one,  than  it  is  to  explore 
the  private  sea,  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Ocean  of  one's 
being  alone.  — 

"Erret,  et  extremes  alter  scrutetur  Iberos. 
Plus  habet  hie  vitae,  plus  habet  ille  viae." 

Let  them  wander  and  scrutinize  the  outlandish  Australians. 
I  have  more  of  God,  they  more  of  the  road. 

It  is  not  worth  the  while  to  go  round  the  world  to  count 
the  cats  in  Zanzibar.  Yet  do  this  even  till  you  can 
do  better,  and  you  may  perhaps  find  some  "Symmes' 
Hole  "  by  which  to  get  at  the  inside  at  last.  England  and 
France,  Spain  and  Portugal,  Gold  Coast  and  Slave  Coast, 
all  front  on  this  private  sea;  but  no  bark  from  them  has 
ventured  out  of  sight  of  land,  though  it  is  without  doubt 
the  direct  way  to  India.  If  you  would  learn  to  speak  all 
tongues  and  conform  to  the  customs  of  all  nations,  if 
you  would  travel  farther  than  all  travellers,  be  natural 
ized  in  all  climes,  and  cause  the  Sphinx  to  dash  her  head 
against  a  stone,  even  obey  the  precept  of  the  old  philoso 
pher,  and  Explore  thyself.  Herein  are  demanded  the  eye 
and  the  nerve.  Only  the  defeated  and  deserters  go  to 
the  wars,  cowards  that  run  away  and  enlist.  Start  now 
on  that  farthest  western  way,  which  does  not  pause  at  the 


CONCLUSION  355 

Mississippi  or  the  Pacific,  nor  conduct  toward  a  worn- 
out  China  or  Japan,  but  leads  on  direct,  a  tangent  to  this 
sphere,  summer  and  winter,  day  and  night,  sun  down, 
moon  down,  and  at  last  earth  down  too. 

It  is  said  that  Mirabeau  took  to  highway  robbery  "  to 
ascertain  what  degree  of  resolution  was  necessary  in  or 
der  to  place  one's  self  in  formal  opposition  to  the  most 
sacred  laws  of  society."  He  declared  that  "a  soldier 
who  fights  in  the  ranks  does  not  require  half  so  much 
courage  *as  a  foot-pad,"  •-" that  honor  and  religion 
have  never  stood  in  the  way  of  a  well-considered  and  a 
firm  resolve."  This  was  manly,  as  the  world  goes;  and 
yet  it  was  idle,  if  not  desperate.  A  saner  man  would  have 
found  himself  often  enough  "in  formal  opposition"  to 
what  are  deemed  "the  most  sacred  laws  of  society," 
through  obedience  to  yet  more  sacred  laws,  and  so  have 
tested  his  resolution  without  going  out  of  his  way.  It 
is  not  for  a  man  to  put  himself  in  such  an  attitude  to 
society,  but  to  maintain  himself  in  whatever  attitude  he 
find  himself  through  obedience  to  the  laws  of  his  being, 
which  will  never  be  one  of  opposition  to  a  just  govern 
ment,  if  he  should  chance  to  meet  with  such. 

I  left  the  woods  for  as  good  a  reason  as  I  went  there. 
Perhaps  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  several  more  lives  to 
live,  and  could  not  spare  any  more  time  for  that  one.  It 
is  remarkable  how  easily  and  insensibly  we  fall  into  a 
particular  route,  and  make  a  beaten  track  for  ourselves. 
I  had  not  lived  there  a  week  before  my  feet  wore  a  path 
from  my  door  to  the  pond-side ;  and  though  it  is  five  or 
six  years  since  I  trod  it,  it  is  still  quite  distinct.  It  is  true, 
I  fear,  that  others  may  have  fallen  into  it,  and  so  helped 


356  WALDEN 

/  to  keep  it  open.  The  surface  of  the  earth  is  soft  and  im 
pressible  by  thejeel  of  men  ;  and  so  with  the  paths  which 
the  mind  travels.  How  worn  and  dusty,  _  then^jnust  be 
the  highways  x>f  the  worldy-how-deep  ±he  ruts  of  tradi 
tion  ajndj^nforadtyJ  I  did  not  wish  to  take  a  cabin  pas- 
sageTBut:  rather  to  go  before  the  mast  and  on  the  deck  of 
the  world,  for  there  I  could  best  see  the  moonlight  amid 
the  mountains.  I  do  not  wish  to  go  below  now. 

I  learned  this,  at  least,  by  my  experiment:  that  if  one 
advances  confidently  in  the  direction  of  his  dreams,  and 
endeavors  to  live  the  life  which  he  has  imagined,  he  will 
meet  with  a  success  unexpected  in  common  hours.  He 
will  put  some  things  behind,  will  pass  an  invisible  bound 
ary;  newyuniversal,  and  more  liberal  laws  will  begin  to 
establish  themselves  around  and  within  him  ;  or  the  old 
laws  be  expanded,  and  interpreted  in  his  favor  in  a  more 
liberal  sense,  and  he  will  live  with  the  license  of  a  higher 
order  of  beings.  In  proportion  as  he  simplifies  his  life, 
the  laws  of  the  universe  will  appear  less  complex,  and 
will  notjpe  solitude,  nor  poverty  poverty,  nor 


weakness  wea.kne.ss.  If  you  have  built  castles  in  the  air, 
your  work  need  not  be  lost  ;  that  is  where  they  should  be. 
Now  put  the  foundations  under  them. 

It  is  a  ridiculous  demand  which  England  and  America 
make,  that  you  shall  speak  so  that  they  can  understand 
you.  Neither  men  nor  toadstools  grow  so.  As  if  that 
were  important,  and  there  were  not  enough  to  under 
stand  you  without  them.  As  if  Nature  could  support  but 
one  order  of  understandings,  could  not  sustain  birds  as 
well  as  quadrupeds,  flying  as  well  as  creeping  things, 
and  hish  and  whoa,  which  Bright  can  understand,  were 


WALDEN  FROM  THE  SITE  OF  THE  HOUSE 


CONCLUSION  357 

the  best  English.  As  if  there  were  safety  in  stupidity 
alone.  I  fear  chiefly  lest  my  expression  may  not  be 
extra-vagant  enough,  may  not  wander  far  enough  be 
yond  the  narrow  limits  of  my  daily  experience,  so  as  to 
be  adequate  to  the  truth  of  which  I  have  been  con 
vinced.  Extra  vagance  !  it  depends  on  how  you  are 
yarded.  The  migrating  buffalo,  which  seeks  new  pas 
tures  in  another  latitude,  is  not  extravagant  like  the 
cow  which  kicks  over  the  pail,  leaps  the  cowyard  fence, 
and  runs  after  her  calf,  in  milking  time.  I  desire  to 
speak  somewhere  without  bounds ;  like  a  man  in  a  wak 
ing  moment,  to  men  in  their  waking  moments;  for  I 
am  convinced  that  I  cannot  exaggerate  enough  even  to 
lay  the  foundation  of  a  true  expression.  Who  that  has 
heard  a  strain  of  music  feared  then  lest  he  should  speak 
extravagantly  any  more  forever  ?  In  view  of  the  future 
or  possible,  we  should  live  quite  laxly  and  undefined  in 
front,  our  outlines  dim  and  misty  on  that  side;  as  our 
shadows  reveal  an  insensible  perspiration  toward  the 
sun.  The  volatile  truth  of  our  words  should  contin 
ually  betray  the  inadequacy  of  the  residual  statement. 
Their  truth  is  instantly  translated;  its  literal  monument 
alone  remains.  The  words  which  express  our  faith  and 
piety  are  not  definite;  yet  they  are  significant  and  fra 
grant  like  frankincense  to  superior  natures. 

Why  level  downward  to  our  dullest  perception  al 
ways,  and  praise  that  as  common  sense?  The  com 
monest  sense  is  the  sense  of  men  asleep,  which  they  ' 
express  by  snoring.  Sometimes  we  are  inclined  to  class 
those  who  are  once-and-a-half-witted  with  the  half 
witted,  because  we  appreciate  only  a  third  part  of  their 


358  WALDEN 

wit.  Some  would  find  fault  with  the  morning  red,  if 
they  ever  got  up  early  enough.  "They  pretend,"  as  I 
hear,  "that  the  verses  of  Kabir  have  four  different 
senses;  illusion,  spirit,  intellect,  and  the  exoteric  doc 
trine  of  the  Vedas ; "  but  in  this  part  of  the  world  it  is 
considered  a  ground  for  complaint  if  a  man's  writings 
admit  of  more  than  one  interpretation.  While  England 
endeavors  to  cure  the  potato-rot,  will  not  any  endeavor 
to  cure  the  brain-rot,  which  prevails  so  much  more 
widely  and  fatally? 

I  do  not  suppose  that  I  have  attained  to  obscurity, 
but  I  should  be  proud  if  no  more  fatal  fault  were  found 
with  my  pages  on  this  score  than  was  found  with  the 
Walden  ice.  Southern  customers  objected  to  its  blue 
color,  which  is  the  evidence  of  its  purity,  as  if  it  were 
muddy,  and  preferred  the  Cambridge  ice,  which  is 
white,  but  tastes  of  weeds.  The  purity  men  love  is  like 
the  mists  which  envelop  the  earth,  and  not  like  the  azure 
ether  beyond. 

Some  are  dinning  in  our  ears  that  we  Americans, 
and  moderns  generally,  are  intellectual  dwarfs  com 
pared  with  the  ancients,  or  even  the  Elizabethan  men. 
But  what  is  that  to  the  purpose  ?  A  living  dog  is  better 
than  a  dead  lion.  Shall  a  man  go  and  hang  himself  be 
cause  he  belongs  to  the  race  of  pygmies,  and  not  be  the 
biggest  pygmy  that  he  can  ?  Let  every  one  mind  his 
own  business,  and  endeavor  to  be  what  he  was  made. 

Why  should  we  be  in  such  desperate  haste  to  succeed 
and  in  such  desperate  enterprises  ?  If  a  man  does  not 
*  r— -keep  pace  with  his  companions,  perhaps  it  is  because 
he  hears  a  different  drummer.  Let  him  step  to  the 


CONCLUSION  359_      * 

music  which  he  hears,  however  measured  or  far  away.       ^t 
It  is  not  important  that  he  should  mature  as  soon  as  Str-J 
apple  tree  or  an  oak.  Shall  he  turn  his  spring  into  sum 
mer?    If  the  condition  of  things  which  we  were  made 
for  is  not  yet,  what  were  any  reality  which  we  can  sub 
stitute  ?   We  will  not  be  shipwrecked  on  a  vain  reality. 
Shall  we  with  pains  erect  a  heaven  of  blue  glass  over 
ourselves,  though  when  it  is  done  we  shall  be  sure  to 
gaze  still  at  the  true  ethereal  heaven  far  above,  as  if 
the  former  were  not  ? 

There  was  an  artist  in  the  city  of  Kouroo  who  was 
disposed  to  strive  after  perfection.  One  day  it  came  into 
his  mind  to  make  a  staff.  Having  considered  that  in  an 
imperfect  work  time  is  an  ingredient,  but  into  a  per 
fect  work  time  does  not  enter,  he  said  to  himself,  It 
shall  be  perfect  in  all  respects,  though  I  should  do  no 
thing  else  in  my  life.  He  proceeded  instantly  to  the 
forest  for  wood,  being  resolved  that  it  should  not  be 
made  of  unsuitable  material;  and  as  he  searched  for 
and  rejected  stick  after  stick,  his  friends  gradually  de 
serted  him,  for  they  grew  old  in  their  works  and  died, 
but  he  grew  not  older  by  a  moment.  His  singleness 
of  purpose  and  resolution,  and  his  elevated  piety, 
endowed  him,  without  his  knowledge,  with  perennial 
youth.  As  he  made  no  compromise  with  Time,  Time 
kept  out  of  his  way,  and  only  sighed  at  a  distance  be 
cause  he  could  not  overcome  him.  Before  he  had  found 
a  stock  in  all  respects  suitable  the  city  of  Kouroo  was 
a  hoary  ruin,  and  he  sat  on  one  of  its  mounds  to  peel 
the  stick.  Before  he  had  given  it  the  proper  shape  the 
dynasty  of  the  Candahars  was  at  an  end,  and  with  the 


360  WALDEN 

point  of  the  stick  he  wrote  the  name  of  the  last  of  that 
race  in  the  sand,  and  then  resumed  his  work.  By  the 
time  he  had  smoothed  and  polished  the  staff  Kalpa 
was  no  longer  the  pole-star;  and  ere  he  had  put  on  the 
ferule  and  the  head  adorned  with  precious  stones, 
Brahma  had  awoke  and  slumbered  many  times.  But 
why  do  I  stay  to  mention  these  things?  When  the 
finishing  stroke  was  put  to  his  work,  it  suddenly  ex 
panded  before  the  eyes  of  the  astonished  artist  into  the 
fairest  of  all  the  creations  of  Brahma.  He  had  made  a 
new  system  in  making  a  staff,  a  world  with  full  and  fair 
proportions ;  in  which,  though  the  old  cities  and  dynas 
ties  had  passed  away,  fairer  and  more  glorious  ones  had 
taken  their  places.  And  now  he  saw  by  the  heap  of 
shavings  still  fresh  at  his  feet,  that,  for  him  and  his 
work,  the  former  lapse  of  time  had  been  an  illusion, 
and  that  no  more  time  had  elapsed  than  is  required  for 
a  single  scintillation  from  the  brain  of  Brahma  to  fall  on 
and  inflame  the  tinder  of  a  mortal  brain.  The  material 
was  pure,  and  his  art  was  pure;  how  could  the  result 
be  other  than  wonderful  ? 

No  face  which  we  can  give  to  a  matter  will  stead  us 
so  well  at  last  as  the  truth.  This  alone  wears  well.  For 
the  most  part,  we  are  not  where  we  are,  but  in  a  false 
position.  Through  an  infirmity  of  our  natures,  we  sup 
pose  a  case,  and  put  ourselves  into  it,  and  hence  are  in 
two  cases  at  the  same  time,  and  it  is  doubly  difficult 
to  get  out.  In  sane  moments  we  regard  only  the  facts, 
the  case  that  is.  Say  what  you  have  to  say,  not  what 
you  ought.  Any  truth  is  better  than  make-believe.  Tom 
Hyde,  the  tinker,  standing  on  the  gallows,  was  asked  i* 


CONCLUSION  361 

he  had  anything  to  say.  "  Tell  the  tailors,"  said  he,  "  to 
remember  to  make  a  knot  in  their  thread  before  they 
take  the  first  stitch."  His  companion's  prayer  is  for 
gotten,  -v 

However  mean  your  life  is,  meet  it  and  live  it ;  do  not^ 
shun  it  and  call  it  hard  names.  It  is  not  so  bad  as  you 
are.  It  looks  poorest  when  you  are  richest.  The  fault 
finder  will  find  faults  even  in  paradise.  Love  your  life, 
poor  as  it  is.  You  may  perhaps  have  some  pleasant, 
thrilling,  glorious  hours,  even  in  a  poor-house.  The 
setting  sun  is  reflected  from  the  windows  of  the  alms- 
house  as  brightly  as  from  the  rich  man's  abode;  the 
snow  melts  before  its  door  as  early  in  the  spring.  I  do 
not  see  but  a  quiet  mind  may  live  as  contentedly  there, 
and  have  as  cheering  thoughts,  as  in  a  palace.  The 
town's  poor  seem  to  me  often  to  live  the  most  inde 
pendent  lives  of  any.  Maybe  they  are  simply  great 
enough  to  receive  without  misgiving.  Most  think  that 
they  are  above  being  supported  by  the  town;  but  it 
oftener  happens  that  they  are  not  above  supporting 
themselves  by  dishonest  means,  which  should  be  more 
disreputable.  Cultivate  poverty  like  a  garden  herb, 
like  sage.  Do  not  trouble  yourself  much  to  get  new 
things,  whether  clothes  or  friends.  Turn  the  old;  return 
to  them.  Things  do  not  change ;  we  change.  Sell  your 
clothes  ahcTkeep  your  thoughts.  Cod  will  see  that  you 
do  not  want  society.  If  I  were  confined  to  a  corner  of  a 
garret  all  my  days,  like  a  spider,  the  world  would  be 
just  as  large  to  me  while  I  had  my  thoughts  about  me. 
The  philosopher  said :  "  From  an  army  of  three  divisions 
one  can  take  away  its  general,  and  put  it  in  disorder; 


362  WALDEN 

from  the  man  the  most  abject  and  vulgar  one  cannot 
J#ke  away  his  thought."   Do  not  seek  so  anxiously  to  be 
J  developed,  to  subject  yourself  to  many  influences  to  be 
I   J  jplayed  on;  it  is  all  dissipation.   I^umility  like  darkness 
reveals  the  heavenly  lights.     The  shadows  of  poverty 
and  meanness  gather  around  us,   "and  lo!  creation 
widens  to  our  view."    We  are  often  reminded  that  if 
there  were  bestowed  on  us  the  wealth  of  Croesus,  our 
aims  must  still  be  the  same,  and  our  means  essentially 
t tjxe  same.  ^Moreover,  if  you  are  restricted  in  your  range 
^DJ  poverty,  if  you  cannot  buy  books  and  newspapers, 
for  instance,  you  are  but  confined  to  the  most  signifi 
cant  and  vital  experiences;  you  are  compelled  to  deal 
with  the  material  which  yields  the  most  sugar  and  the 
most  starch.  It  is  life  near  the  bone  where  it  is  sweetest. 

7  You  are  defended  from  being  a  trifler.  No  man  loses 
ever  on  a  lower  level  by  magnanimity^  on  a  higher. 
Superfluous  wealth  can  buysuperfluities  only.  Money 
is  not  required  to  buy  one  necessary  of  the  soul. 

I  live  in  the  angle  of  a  leaden  wall,  into  whose  com 
position  was  poured  a  little  alloy  of  bell-metal.  Often, 
in  the  repose  of  my  mid-day,  there  reaches  my  ears  a 
confused  tintinnabulum  from  without.  It  is  the  noise 
of  my  contemporaries.  My  neighbors  tell  me  of  their 
adventures  with  famous  gentlemen  and  ladies,  what 
notabilities  they  met  at  the  dinner-table;  but  I  am  no 
more  interested  in  such  things  than  in  the  contents  of 
the  Daily  Times.  The  interest  and  the  conversation 
are  about  costume  and  manners  chiefly;  but  a  goose  is 
a  goose  still,  dress  it  as  you  will.  They  tell  me  of  Cali 
fornia  and  Texas,  of  England  and  the  Indies,  of  the 


CONCLUSION  363 

Hon.  Mr.  of  Georgia  or  of  Massachusetts,  all 

transient  and  fleeting  phenomena,  till  I  am  ready  to 
leap  from  their  court-yard  like  the  Mameluke  bey.  I 
delight  to  come  to  my  bearings,  —  not  walk  in  proces 
sion  with  pomp  and  parade,  in  a  conspicuous  place,  but 
to  walk  even  with  the  Builder  of  the  universe,  if  I  may, 
—  not  to  live  in  this  restless,  nervous,  bustling,  trivial 
Nineteenth  Century,  but  stand  or  sit  thoughtfully  while 
it  goes  by.  What  are  men  celebrating  ?  They  are  all 
on  a  committee  of  arrangements,  and  hourly  expect  a 
speech  from  somebody.  God  is  only  the  president  of 
the  day,  and  Webster  is  his  orator.  I  love  to  weigh,  to 
settle,  to  gravitate  toward  that  which  most  strongly 
and  rightfully  attracts  me ;  —  not  hang  by  the  beam  of 
the  scale  and  try  to  weigh  less, —  not  suppose  a  case, 
but  take  the  case  that  is;  to  travel  the  only  path  I  can, 
and  that  on  which  no  power  can  resist  me.  It  affords 
me  no  satisfaction  to  commence  to  spring  an  arch  before 
I  have  got  a  solid  foundation.  Let  us  not  play  at  kittly- 
benders.  There  is  a  solid  bottom  everywhere.  We  read 
that  the  traveller  asked  the  boy  if  the  swamp  before  him 
had  a  hard  bottom.  The  boy  replied  that  it  had.  But 
presently  the  traveller's  horse  sank  in  up  to  the  girths, 
and  he  observed  to  the  boy,  "I  thought  you  said  that 
this  bog  had  a  hard  bottom."  "So  it  has,"  answered 
the  latter,  "but  you  have  not  got  half  way  to  it  yet." 
So  it  is  with  the  bogs  and  quicksands  of  society;  but 
he  is  an  old  boy  that  knows  it.  Only  what  is  thought, 
said,  or  done  at  a  certain  rare  coincidence  is  good. 
I  would  not  be  one  of  those  who  will  foolishly  drive  a 
nail  into  mere  lath  and  plastering;  such  a  deed  would 


364  WALDEN 

keep  me  awake  nights.  Give  me  a  hammer,  and  let  me 
feel  for  the  furring.  Do  not  depend  on  the  putty. 
Drive  a  nail  home  and  clinch  it  so  faithfully  that  you 
can  wake  up  in  the  night  and  think  of  your  work  with 
satisfaction,  —  a  work  at  which  you  would  not  be 
ashamed  to  invoke  the  Muse.  So  will  help  you  God, 
and  so  only.  Every  nail  driven  should  be  as  another 
rivet  in  the  machine  of  the  universe,  you  carrying  on 
the  work. 

Rather  than  love,  than  money,  than  fame,  give  me 
truth.  I  sat  at  a  table  where  were  rich  food  and  wine  in 
abundance,  and  obsequious  attendance,  but  sincerity 
and  truth  were  not;  and  I  went  away  hungry  from  the 
inhospitable  board.  The  hospitality  was  as  cold  as  the 
ices.  I  thought  that  there  was  no  need  of  ice  to  freeze 
them.  They  talked  to  me  of  the  age  of  the  wine  and  the 
fame  of  the  vintage ;  but  I  thought  of  an  older,  a  newer, 
and  purer  wine,  of  a  more  glorious  vintage,  which  they 
had  not  got,  and  could  not  buy.  The  style,  the  house 
and  grounds  and  "entertainment"  pass  for  nothing 
with  me.  I  called  on  the  king,  but  he  made  me  wait  in 
his  hall,  and  conducted  like  a  man  incapacitated  for 
hospitality.  There  was  a  man  in  my  neighborhood  who 
lived  in  a  hollow  tree.  His  manners  were  truly  regal.  I 
should  have  done  better  had  I  called  on  him. 

How  long  shall  we  sit  in  our  porticoes  practising  idle 
and  musty  virtues,  which  any  work  would  make  im 
pertinent  ?  As  if  one  were  to  begin  the  day  with  long- 
suffering,  and  hire  a  man  to  hoe  his  potatoes;  and  in 
the  afternoon  go  forth  to  practise  Christian  meekness 
and  charity  with  goodness  aforethought!  Consider  the 


CONCLUSION  365 

China  pride  and  stagnant  self-complacency  of  mankind. 
This  generation  inclines  a  little  to  congratulate  itself 
on  being  the  last  of  an  illustrious  line;  and  in  Boston 
and  London  and  Paris  and  Rome,  thinking  of  its  long 
descent,  it  speaks  of  its  progress  in  art  and  science  and 
literature  with  satisfaction.  There  are  the  Records  of 
the  Philosophical  Societies,  and  the  public  Eulogies  of 
Great  Men  !  It  is  the  good  Adam  contemplating  his  own 
virtue.  "Yes,  we  have  done  great  deeds,  and  sung 
divine  songs,  which  shall  never  die,"  —  that  is,  as  long 
as  we  can  remember  them.  The  learned  societies  and 
great  men  of  Assyria,  —  where  are  they  ?  What  youth 
ful  philosophers  and  experimentalists  we  are  !  There  is 
not  one  of  my  readers  who  has  yet  lived  a  whole  human 
life.  These  may  be  but  the  spring  months  in  the  life  of 
the  race.  If  we  have  had  the  seven-years'  itch,  we  have 
not  seen  the  seventeen-year  locust  yet  in  Concord.  We 
are  acquainted  with  a  mere  pellicle  of  the  globe  on  which 
we  live.  Most  have  not  delved  six  feet  beneath  the  sur 
face,  nor  leaped  as  many  above  it.  We  know  not  where 
we  are.  Beside,  we  are  sound  asleep  nearly  half  our 
time.  Yet  we  esteem  ourselves  wise,  and  have  an  estab 
lished  order  on  the  surface.  Truly,  we  are  deep  thinkers, 
we  are  ambitious  spirits!  /As  I  stand  over  the  insect 
crawling  amid  the  pine  needles  on  the  forest  floor,  and 
endeavoring  to  conceal  itself  from  my  sight,  and  ask 
myself  why  it  will  cherish  those  humble  thoughts,  and 
hide  its  head  from  me  who  might,  perhaps,  be  its  bene 
factor,  and  impart  to  its  race  some  cheering  informa 
tion,  I  am  reminded  of  the  greater  Benefactor  and 
Intelligence  that  stands  over  me  the  human  insect.* 


366  WALDEN 

There  is  an  incessant  influx  of  novelty  into  the  world, 
and  yet  we  tolerate  incredible  dulness.  I  need  only  sug 
gest  what  kind  of  sermons  are  still  listened  to  in  the 
most  enlightened  countries.  There  are  such  words  as 
joy  and  sorrow,  but  they  are  only  the  burden  of  a  psalm, 
sung  with  a  nasal  twang,  while  we  believe  in  the  ordi 
nary  and  mean.  We  think  that  we  can  change  our 
clothes  only.  It  is  said  that  the  British  Empire  is  very 
large  and  respectable,  and  that  the  United  States  are 
a  first-rate  power.  We  do  not  believe  that  a  tide  rises 
and  falls  behind  every  man  which  can  float  the  British 
Empire  like  a  chip,  if  he  should  ever  harbor  it  in  his 
mind.  Who  knows  what  sort  of  seventeen-year  locust 
will  next  come  out  of  the  ground  ?  The  government  of 
the  world  I  live  in  was  not  framed,  like  that  of  Britain, 
in  after-dinner  conversations  over  the  wine. 

The  life  in  us  is  like  the  water  in  the  river.  It  may 
rise  this  year  higher  than  man  has  ever  known  it,  and 
flood  the  parched  uplands ;  even  this  may  be  the  event 
ful  year,  which  will  drown  out  all  our  muskrats.  It 
was  not  always  dry  land  where  we  dwell.  I  see  far 
inland  the  banks  which  the  stream  anciently  washed, 
before  science  began  to  record  its  freshets.  Every  one 
has  heard  the  story  which  has  gone  the  rounds  of  New 
England,  of  a  strong  and  beautiful  bug  which  came  out 
of  the  dry  leaf  of  an  old  table  of  apple-tree  wood,  which 
had  stood  in  a  farmer's  kitchen  for  sixty  years,  first  in 
Connecticut,  and  afterward  in  Massachusetts,  —  from 
an  egg  deposited  in  the  living  tree  many  years  earlier 
still,  as  appeared  by  counting  the  annual  layers  beyond 
it;  which  was  heard  gnawing  out  for  several  weeks, 


CONCLUSION  367 

hatched  perchance  by  the  heat  of  an  urn.  Who  doesi 
not  feel  his  faith  in  a  resurrection  and  immortality/ 
strengthened  by  hearing  of  this?  Who  knows  what* 
beautiful  and  winged  life,  whose  egg  has  been  buried 
for  ages  under  many  concentric  layers  of  woodenness 
in  the  dead  dry  life  of  society,  deposited  at  first  in  the 
alburnum  of  the  green  and  living  tree,  which  has  been 
gradually  converted  into  the  semblance  of  its  well-sea 
soned  tomb,  —  heard  perchance  gnawing  out  now  for 
years  by  the  astonished  family  of  man,  as  they  sat 
round  the  festive  board,  —  may  unexpectedly  come 
forth  from  amidst  society's  most  trivial  and  handselled 
furniture,  to  enjoy  its  perfect  summer  life  at  last! 

I  do  not  say  that  John  or  Jonathan  will  realize  all ' 
this;  but  such  is  the  character  of  that  morrow  which 
mere  lapse  of  time  can  never  make  to  dawn.  The  light 
which  puts  out  our  eyes  is  darkness  to  us.  Only  that 
day  dawns  to  which  we  are  awake.  There  is  more  day 
to  dawn.  The  sun  is  but  a  morning  star. 


0^\v 


NOTES 

Page  4,  lines  16,  17.  You  who  read  these  pages,  who  are 
said  to  live  in  New  England.  Note  the  limited  audience 
which  Thoreau  had  in  mind.  It  may  have  "been  from  modesty,  aa 
if  he  expected  only  his  friends  and  neighbors  to  take  an  interest 
in  his  book ;  or  it  may  be  that  he  depended  chiefly  on  the  interest 
in  the  Transcendental  movement,  which  was  largely  confined  to 
New  England,  to  attract  readers.  His  experience  with  his  first 
book,  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  of  which  only 
a  little  over  two  hundred  copies  were  sold  in  the  first  four  years, 
was  such  as  to  prepare  him  for  a  small  sale. 

Line  17.  Are  said  to  live.  Implies  some  doubt  as  to  whether 
they  really  live  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 

Lines  21,  22.  I  have  travelled  a  good  deal  in  Concord. 
Thoreau  regarded  Concord  —  or  indeed  any  man's  home  —  as  an 
epitome  of  the  world.  It  was  not  necessary,  in  his  opinion,  to  go 
far  in  order  to  see  all  that  was  really  worth  seeing.  This  opinion 
did  not  prevent  his  refreshing  himself  by  occasional  somewhat 
more  extended  journeys  into  the  world,  however. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Bramins.  More  often  spelled  Brahmins  or 
JBrahmans.  The  religious  upper  caste  of  the  Hindoos.  Some  of 
the  more  rigorous  devotees  tortured  themselves  in  many  ways  and 
lived  by  begging.  Thoreau  was  an  earnest  student  of  the  Hindoo 
philosophy  and  mythology,  reading  translations  of  the  sacred 
books. 

Page  5,  line  11.  lolaus.  One  of  the  twelve  labors  imposed  upon  Her 
cules  by  King  Eurystheus  was  the  fight  with  a  monstrous  water- 
gnake  called  the  Hydra,  which  had  nine  heads,  one  of  which  WM 
immortal.  Whenever  a  head  was  cut  off,  two  grew  in  its  place, 
until  Hercules'  charioteer  lolaus  (I-o-la'us)  seared  the  stumps  with 
a  red-hot  iron.  The  immortal  head  was  buried  under  a  mass  of 
rock. 

Line  18.  Suckled  by  a  wolf.   Like  Romulus  and  Remus. 

Line  22.  Peck  of  dirt.  The  allusion  is  to  the  old  saying  that 
every  person  must  eat  a  peck  of  dirt  before  he  dies,  quoted  to 
children  who  are  thought  over-particular  about  the  cleanliness  of 
their  food. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  Augean  stables.  The  cleansing  of  th« 
Augean  stable  was  one  of  Hercules'  labors. 


370  NOTES 

Page  6,  line  6.    An  old  book.   The  Bible. 

Line  12.    Inde  genus,  etc.    From  Ovid's  story  of  Deucalion  and 

Pyrrha  in  the  Metamorphoses. 

Line  14.  Raleigh.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  the  subject  of  an  early 
essay  by  Thoreau,  who  greatly  admired  his  literary  style  (see 
A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  "Sunday").  The 
lines  are  Raleigh's  translation  of  the  Latin  of  Ovid,  which  he 
quotes  in  his  History  of  the  World. 

Page  7,  line  16.  On  the  limits.  Mr.  Sanborn,  in  the  Bibliophile  edi 
tion  of  Walden,  suggests  that  this  has  reference  to  the  jail-limits 
for  imprisoned  debtors. 

Page  8,  lines  11,  12.  Divinity  stir  within  him. 

"  It  must  be  so,  —  Plato,  thou  reasonest  well ! 
Else  whence  this  pleasing  hope,  this  fond  desire, 
This  longing  after  immortality  ? 
Or  whence  this  secret  dread  and  inward  horror 
Of  falling  into  naught  ?  Why  shrinks  the  soul 
Back  on  herself,  and  startles  at  destruction  ? 
'T  is  the  divinity  that  stirs  within  us ; 
'Tis  Heaven  itself  that  points  out  an  hereafter, 
And  intimates  eternity  to  man." 

JOSEPH  ADDISON,  Cato,  Act  V,  Sc.  i. 

Line  9  from  bottom.   Wilberforce.   William  Wilberforce  (1759- 

1833),  an  English  philanthropist  and  anti-slavery  leader. 
Last  line,  page  9,  line  1.  Bravery  of  minks  and  muskrats.  See 

p.  73,  line  15,  and  note. 
Page  9,  line  9  from  bottom.  Whirled  round  the  globe.   That  is 

in  railroad  trains  and  steamships. 

Page  10,  line  7   from  bottom.    Evelyn.  John  Evelyn  (1620-1706), 
a  famous   English   diarist  and  writer,  an   authority  on  garden 
ing.   His  book  on  trees,  entitled  Sylva,  was  a  favorite  with  Tho 
reau. 
Line  2  from  bottom.    Hippocrates,   An  ancient  Greek  physician, 

called  the  "  father  of  medicine." 
Page  13,  line  4  from  bottom.    Second  nature.   Habit  is  second 

nature.  —  Cicero,  Plutarch,  Montaigne,  and  others. 
Page  14,  line  1.  Darwin.  Charles  Darwin,  the  great  English  natu 
ralist.  His  famous  book  on  the  Origin  of  Species  was  not  pub 
lished  at  the  time  Walden  was  written,  but  Thoreau  had  read  his 
Voyage  of  a  Naturalist  round  the  World,  and  he  quotes  and  com 
ments  upon  it  extensively  in  his  Journal. 

.line  7.  New  Hollander.  New  Holland  is  an  old  name  for  Aus 
tralia. 

Line  11.  Liebig.  Baron  Justus  von  Liebig,  a  famous  German 
chemist  (1803-1873). 


NOTES  371 

Page  18,  lines  16,  17.   Notch  it  on  my  stick.   As  Bobinson  Crusoe 

kept  his  calendar. 

Lines  17,  18.  The  meeting  of  two  eternities,  the  past  and 
future. 

"  This  narrow  isthmus  'twixt  two  boundless  seas, 
The  past,  the  future,  —  two  eternities  !  " 

THOMAS  MOOBE,  Lalla  Rookh. 

"  One  life,  —  a  little  gleam  of  time  between  two  eternities."  — 
Thomas  Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  "The  Hero  as  Man 
of  Letters." 

Line  6  from  bottom.  I  long  ago  lost  a  hound,  a  bay  horse, 
and  a  turtle-dove.  These  may  be  taken  to  represent  the 
vague  desires  and  aspirations  of  man's  spiritual  nature,  things 
that  we  seek  for  as  belonging  of  right  to  us,  but  existing  some 
where  out  of  our  reach. 

Page  19,  line  19.   Gazette.   Any  daily  paper. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Reporter  to  a  journal.  Probably  his  own 
"  journal  "  is  meant.  When  this  journal  passed  into  the  hands  of 
another  "  editor,"  the  contributions  referred  to  were  printed  in 
full.  They  occupy  fourteen  volumes  of  the  Walden  Edition  of 
Thoreau,  and  were  published  in  1906. 

Page  20,  lines  11-13.  The  red  huckleberry  .  .  .  the  yellow 
violet.  These  were  all  rarities  in  Concord,  and  as  such  especially 
cherished  by  Thoreau.  The  Journal  gives  account  of  them  from 
time  to  time.  The  red  huckleberry  is  not  a  separate  species,  but 
was  probably  what  is  known  as  a  "  sport." 

Page  21,  lines  24, 25.  My  purpose  in  going  to  Walden  Pond. 
This  statement  is  explicit.  It  controverts  the  popular  idea  that 
Thoreau  was  posing  as  a  hermit  in  living  alone  at  Walden.  A 
part  of  this  "  private  business  "  was  the  writing  of  his  first  book, 
A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers.  But  see  also 
pp.  100,  101. 

Page  22,  line  2.  Celestial  Empire.  There  is,  of  course,  a  play  upon 
the  words  here.  The  early  American  trade  with  China  —  often 
called  the  Celestial  Empire — was  largely  from  the  port  of  Salem, 
Mass.,  but  it  is  an  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world  of  which 
Thoreau  is  thinking. 

Lines  5,  6.  Ice  and  pine  timber  and  a  little  granite.  The 
chief  raw  products  exported  from  New  England  in  Thoreau's 
time. 

Line  3  from  bottom.  La  Porous  e.  Jean -Francois  de  Galaup, 
Comte  de  La  Pe"rouse  (1741-1788),  a  famous  French  navigator, 
who  made  discoveries  in  the  Far  East.  His  fate  did  not  remain 
entirely  untold,  for,  some  forty  years  after  his  death,  it  was  learned 


372  NOTES 

that  he  was  shipwrecked  in  the  New  Hebrides  and  perished  with 
all  his  crew. 

Page  23,  line  1.  Hanno.  A  Carthaginian  navigator  who  explored  the 
west  coast  of  Africa. 

Page  24,  line  6  from  bottom.  The  owner  of  the  farm.  That  is, 
his  clothes  on  the  scarecrow.  "  Clothes  make  the  man." 

Page  25,  line  4.  Madam  Pfeiffer.  Ida  Reyer  Pfeiffer  (1797-1858), 
a  Viennese  traveller,  whose  A  Woman's  Journey  round  the  World 
was  published  in  1850. 

Page  26,  line  12.  New  wine  in  old  bottles.  "  Neither  do  men 
put  new  wine  into  old  bottles."  —  Matthew,  ix,  17. 

Page  27,  line  3.  The  old  philosopher.  Bias,  one  of  the  Seven  Wise 
Men  of  Greece,  who  lived  at  Priene  in  Ionia,  where  he  was  born 
about  B.  c.  570.  Under  date  of  July  12,  1840,  Thoreau  notes  this 
anecdote  about  him  in  his  Journal :  "  In  the  sack  of  Priene,  when 
the  inhabitants  with  much  hurry  and  bustle  were  carrying  their 
effects  to  a  place  of  safety,  some  one  asked  Bias,  who  remained 
tranquil  amid  the  confusion,  why  he  was  not  thinking  how  he 
should  save  something,  as  the  others  were.  '  I  do  so,'  said  Bias, 
'  for  I  carry  all  my  effects  with  me.'  " 

Page  28,  line  2.  The  Farcae.  The  Fates  who,  according  to  the  Greek 
mythology,  controlled  the  lives  of  men  as  if  spinning  and  cutting 
a  thread. 

Line  15.  Egyptian  wheat.  This  old  story  of  the  longevity  of  the 

wheat  germ  is  now  denied.   Thoreau  corrected  his  own  copy  of 

the  book  to  read  "  is  said  to  have  been  handed  down." 

Line  6  from  bottom.   All  costume  off  a  man,  etc.   Thoreau 

\  originally  said  this  apropos  of  the  costumes  of  a  party  of  Tyrolese 

singers  who  visited  Concord  in  February,  1841.    (See  the  Journal, 

vol.  i,  pp.  196,  197.)  This  is  a  good  instance  of  the  way  he  made 

the  entries  in  his  Journal  serve  his  purposes,  or  rather  of  the  way 

particular  observations  led  to  generalizations  which  later  proved 

of  use  to  him  in  his  writing. 

Page  29,  line  3  from  bottom.  Samuel  Laing.  A  Scotch  traveller  who 
published  several  books  on  Norway  and  Sweden. 

Page  30,  line  6.  Domestic.  From  the  Latin  domesticus,  from  tiomus, 
house. 

Page  31,  lines  24,  25.  Penobscot  Indians.  Indians  of  this  tribe 
came  down  from  Maine  to  Massachusetts  in  Thoreau's  time  to  sell 
baskets,  etc.  See  pp.  20,  21. 

Page  32,  lines  7,  8.  Have  freedom  in  his  love,  and  in  his  soul 
be  free. 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 
Nor  iron  bars  a  cage ; 


NOTES  373 

Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 

That  for  an  hermitage  ; 
If  I  have  freedom  in  my  love, 

And  in  my  soul  am  free, 
Angels  alone  that  soar  above 

Enjoy  such  liberty." 

RICHABD  LOVBLACE,  "  To  Althea  from  Prison." 

Line  20.  Oookin.  Daniel  Qookin,  who  was  born  in  England  about 
1612,  and  died  at  Cambridge,  Mass.,  in  1687.  His  book  on  the  In 
dians  was  written  in  1674,  but  remained  unpublished  until  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society  printed  it  in  1792. 

Page  33,  lines,  13, 14.  The  birds  of  the  air  have  their  nests,  and 
the  foxes  their  holes.  "  And  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  The  foxes 
have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests ;  but  the  Son  of 
man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head."  —  Matthew,  viii,  20. 

Page  34,  line  3.  Rumf  ord  fireplace.  Benjamin  Thompson,  Count 
Rumford,  discovered  the  principles  upon  which  fireplaces  and 
chimneys  are  properly  constructed. 

Lines  12-14.  The  cost  of  a  thing  is  the  amount  of  -what  I 
will  call  life  which  is  required  to  be  exchanged  for  it. 
Is  this  a  good  definition  ? 

Page  35,  lines  9,  10.  The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you,  etc. 
"  For  the  poor  always  ye  have  with  you."  —  John,  xii,  8.  "  What 
mean  ye,  that  ye  use  this  proverb  concerning  the  land  of  Israel, 
saying,  The  fathers,"  etc.  This  and  the  two  verses  following  are 
from  Ezekiel,  xviii  (2-4). 

Page  36,  line  9  from  bottom.  Suent.  Working  smoothly.  On  February 
3,  1852,  Thoreau  wrote  in  his  Journal :  " '  Suent '  is  an  expressive 
word,  applied  to  machinery  whose  joints  are  worn,  which  has  got 
into  working  order,  —  apparently  from  sueo,  to  be  accustomed.  So 
of  the  writer's  faculties."  For  Thoreau's  definition  of  the  word  one 
looks  in  vain  in  the  regular  dictionaries  (Murray's  New  English 
Dictionary  has  not  yet  reached  the  letter  S).  One  learns  from  them 
that  it  is  a  dialectic  word,  used  in  some  provinces  in  England  and 
locally  in  the  United  States,  that  "suant"  is  the  usual  spelling, 
and  that  the  ordinary  meaning  is  "evenly  spread,"  "smooth"  in 
that  sense,  as  of  the  sowing  of  grain.  Most  of  the  dialect  dictionaries 
make  a  similar  report,  but  the  large  English  Dialect  Dictionary  by 
Joseph  Wright  (1904)  gives,  as  an  adverbial  usage,  "  Smoothly, 
easily,  without  friction ;  evenly,  regularly,"  and  quotes  J.  Drum- 
mond  Robinson  writing  of  Gloucestershire,  "  A  carpenter,  if  the 
wood  planes  easily,  would  say  it  works  suent,"  and  F.  T.  El  worthy, 
who  heard  in  West  Somerset,  "  A  drap  o'  oil  '11  make  the  wheel 
turn  suanter  by  half."  This  usage  of  the  word  is  Thoreau's  pre 
cisely,  except  that  he  makes  it  an  adjective  instead  of  an  adverb. 


374  NOTES 

He  probably  got  the  word  in  conversation  with  some  workman, 
as  it  does  not  appear  to  have  found  its  way  into  literature  until 
Thoreau  himself  made  use  of  it.  As  the  word  is  not  a  literary  one, 
it  seems  doubtful  if  the  etymology  that  he  suggests  is  correct,  and 
the  dictionary  derivation  from  the  Old  French  suant,  "  following," 
is  more  likely  to  be  the  right  one. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  A  hair  springe.  Perhaps  "springe"  is  a 
misprint  for  "  spring,"  though  all  the  editions  have  it  so.  It  is  diffi 
cult  to  conceive  of  any  serious  harm  coming  to  a  man  from  his 
catching  his  foot  in  a  horsehair  noose,  but  if  it  were  in  a  steel  bear- 
trap  set  so  delicately  that  a  hair  would  spring  it,  that  would  be 
quite  another  matter. 

Page  37,  line  1.  Chapman.  George  Chapman  (1559  P-1634),  an  Eng 
lish  poet  of  the  Elizabethan  age. 

Line  9.  Momus.  In  Greek  mythology  the  spirit  of  mockery  and 
fault-finding. 

Page  38,  line  5.  Silent  poor.  The  poor  who  do  not  let  the  world  know 
of  their  poverty  and  are  not  inmates  of  almshouses  or  recipients  of 
public  charity. 

Line  7.  Garlic.  Herodotus  names  garlic  as  one  of  the  principal  foods 
of  the  pyramid-builders. 

Page  39,  line  6  from  bottom.  Glow-shoes.  A  corruption  of  the 
word  "  galoshes,"  the  rubber  overshoes  now  commonly  called 
"  rubbers  "  in  New  England. 

Page  40,  lines  9,  10.  Memnon.  In  Greek  mythology  the  son  of  Au 
rora,  goddess  of  the  dawn.  The  Greeks  gave  his  name  to  a  colossal 
statue  at  Thebes,  Egypt,  which  was  supposed  to  send  forth  music 
when  struck  by  the  rays  of  the  rising  sun. 
Line  21.  Sardanapalus  was  a  rich  and  luxurious  king  of  Assyria, 

in  the  seventh  century  B.  c. 

Last  line.  Jonathany  Brother  Jonathan/is  the  American  people, 
Uncle  Sam  is  the  nation.  Now  that  the  American  people  is  a  less 
homogeneous  entity  than  formerly,  we  hear  less  Jof  (Brother  Jona- 
than.  I  r* 

Page  41,  line  5.  Breathe  a  malaria.  The  word  "  malaria  "  means 
in  itself  "  bad  air,"  being  taken  directly  from  the  Italian  maV  aria 
or  mala  aria.  Modern  scientific  research  has  shown  us,  however, 
that  the  disease  cannot  be  breathed  in,  but  is  communicated  by  the 
bites  of  the  anopheles  mosquito. 

Line  19.  Agri-culture.  The  division  calls  attention  to  the  deriva 
tion  of  the  word  from  the  Latin  agri  cultura,  the  culture,  or  tilling, 
of  a  field. 

Page  42,  line  6  from  bottom.  Johnson.  Edward  Johnson  (1600-1682), 
author  of  The  Wonder- Working  Providence  of  'Lion's  Saviour  in 


NOTES  375 

New  England,  an  account  of  the  founding  and  early  history  of 

Massachusetts. 
Page  43,  lines  5,  6.   The  secretary  of  the  Province  of  New 

Netherland.  This  was  Cornells  van  Tienhoven.  The  document 

referred  to  will  be  found  in  translation  in  E.  B.  O'Callaghan's 

Documents  relative  to  the  Colonial  History  of  the  State  of  New  York, 

vol.  i,  p.  365. 
Page  45,  line  1.  I  borrowed  an  axe.  He  borrowed  it  of  his  friend 

A.  Bronson  Alcott,  who  was  a  prominent  member  of  the  Concord 

literary  group. 

Line  21.  Lark  and  pewee.  The  meadowlark  and  the  phoabe. 
Line  8  from  bottom.  Winter  of  man's  discontent. 

"  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 
Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  York." 

SHAKESPEARE,  Richard  III,  Act  I,  Sc.  i,  lines  1,  2. 

Page  46,  line  12.  Stray  goose.  A  wild  goose,  at  that  time  on  its 
way  to  its  breeding-grounds  in  the  north.  The  geese  migrate  in 
flocks,  and  this  bird  must  have  become  separated  from  its  com 
panions  by  some  accident. 

Verse.  Men  say  they  know  many  things,  etc.  Thoreau, 
though  a  genuine  poet  in  some  ways,  was  not  an  accomplished 
writer  of  verse.  He  seems  to  have  lacked  a  delicate  ear  for  rhyme 
and  rhythm,  and  the  study  of  meters  and  verse-forms  did  not  in 
terest  him.  He  wrote  a  good  deal  of  verse,  however,  especially  in 
his  younger  years,  and  much  of  it  in  more  or  less  fragmentary 
form.  His  first  book,  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers, 
is  plentifully  sprinkled  with  it,  and  Walden  contains  four  pieces, 
of  which  one,  a  ten-line  stanza  on  "  Smoke,"  is  a  true  poem.  The 
others  would,  perhaps,  be  called  doggerel  by  undiscerning  critics, 
but,  though  rude  and  unbeautiful  in  form,  they  embody  poetic 
thoughts. 

Page  49,  line  6.  The  removal  of  the  gods  of  Troy.  See  book  ii 

of  the  sEneid. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Acquaintances.  These  "  raisers  "  were  A. 
Bronson  Alcott,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  William  Ellery  Channing 
(the  poet),  George  William  Curtis  and  his  brother  Bursill,  and 
Edmund  Hosmer  of  Concord  with  his  sons  John,  Edmund,  and 
Andrew.  (George  Willis  Cooke's  Introduction  to  George  William 
Curtis's  Early  Letters  to  John  S.  Dwight.) 

Page  50,  line  2  from  bottom.  Cowbirds  and  cuckoos.  The  Ameri 
can  cowbird  and  the  European  cuckoo  have  this  parasitic  habit. 

Page  51,  lines  7,  8.  The  tailor  .  .  .  the  ninth  part  of  a  man.  The 
allusion,  of  course,  is  to  the  familiar  saying,  "  It  takes  nine  tailors 
to  make  a  man." 


376  NOTES 

Lines  15,  16.  One  .  .  .  possessed  with  the  idea  of  making 
architectural  ornaments  have  a  core  of  truth.  Horatio 
Greenough,  the  sculptor,  in  a  letter  which  Emerson  showed  to 
Thoreau.  See  Journal,  vol.  iii,  pp.  181-183  (Jan.  11,  1852). 
Page  52,  line  1.  Trinity  Church.  The  particular  Trinity  Church 
referred  to  is  that  on  Broadway,  opposite  the  head  of  Wall  St., 
New  York. 

Line  3  from  bottom.  No  olives  nor  -wines.  That  is,  no  luxuries. 
Page  53,  line  12  from  bottom.  I  built  a  chimney.  See  pp.  266,  267. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Plastered  house.  He  plastered  the  house 
in  November.  (See  p.  271.)  To  give  the  plastering  time  to  dry,  as 
we  learn  from  the  Journal,  he  left  the  house  from  November  12 
to  December  6. 

Page  55,  line  11.  The  devil's  attorney.  A  "devil's  advocate"  is 
"  one  given  to  bringing  forward  accusations  against  personal  char 
acter"  (Century  Dictionary).  The  term  was  originally  applied  in 
its  Latin  form  of  Advocatus  Diaboli  to  the  advocate  in  the  Papal 
court  whose  duty  it  was  to  bring  in  all  possible  evidence  and  urge 
all  possible  objections  against  any  person  who  was  proposed  for 
canonization. 

Line  12.  Cambridge  College.  Harvard  College,  of  which  Thoreau 

was  a  graduate,  is  referred  to,  of  course. 

Page  57,  line  6.  Motes  in  his  eyes.  The  words,  though  not  the 
thought,  are  Biblical.  See  Matthew,  vii,  3-5. 

Line  15.  Rodgers  penknife.  Joseph  Rodgers  and  Sons  were,  and 
are,  famous  cutlers  of  Sheffield,  England.  The  house  was  founded 
in  1682  and  is  still  doing  business. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Adam  Smith,  Ricardo,  and  Say.  Adam 
Smith  (1723-1790,  Scotch),  David  Ricardo  (1772-1823,  English 
Jew),  Jean  Baptiste  Say  (1767-1832,  French),  three  noted  political 
economists. 

Page  58,  line  16.  Princess  Adelaide  appears  to  have  been  an  imagi 
nary  princess. 

Line  19.  Eating  locusts  and  -wild  honey.  Like  John  the  Bap 
tist. 

Line  20.  Flying  Childers.  A  celebrated  English  race-horse  of  the 
early  eighteenth  century.  He  is  said  never  to  have  been  beaten. 

Line  24.  Fitchburg.  In  Massachusetts ;  the  nearest  large  town  to 
the  west  of  Concord,  and  then  the  terminus  of  the  Fitchburg  Rail 
road. 

Page  61,  line  9  from  bottom.     Arthur  Young.     An  English  agricul 
turist  (1741-1820),  author  of  many  books  on  farming. 
Page  63,  line  20.  Bhagvat-Geeta.    Or  Bhagavad-Gita",  one  of  the 
•acred  books  of  the  Hindoos. 


NOTES  377 

Line  27.  When  I  was  there.  Arcadia  was  a  pastoral  country  of 
ancient  Greece.  The  name  has  long  been  used  figuratively  for  any 
ideally  simple  and  poetic  place  or  state  of  existence.  The  particular 
allusion  here  is  to  the  expression,  found  in  the  literature  of  several 
languages, "  I  too  have  lived  in  Arcadia."  This  seems  to  have  origi 
nated  with  the  Italian  painter  Bartolommeo  Schedone  (1560-1616), 
who  placed  at  the  bottom  of  one  of  his  pictures,  formerly  in  the  Sciarra 
collection  (now  dispersed)  in  Rome,  the  words  "  Et  ego  in  Arcadia." 

Page  64,  line  3.  Thebes.  It  is  the  Egyptian,  not  the  Greek,  Thebes 
that  is  referred  to.  Homer  calls  it  "  hundred-gated  "  (Iliad,  book 
ix,  line  383). 

Lines  21,  22.  It  costs  more  than  it  comes  to.  A  familiar  say 
ing  in  New  England  when  a  thing  costs  more  in  time  or  labor  or 
worry  than  it  does  in  money. 

Line  24.  Vitruvius.  Marcus  Vitruvius  Pollio,  a  Roman  architect 
of  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  and  Augustus,  author  of  an  important 
work  on  architecture. 

Line  26.  Thirty  centuries.  Thoreau  probably  meant  to  say  "  forty 
centuries."  Napoleon,  in  a  short  address  to  his  soldiers  in  Egypt, 
said  of  the  Pyramids,  "  From  the  summit  of  those  monuments  forty 
centuries  look  down  upon  you." 

Page  65,  line  9.  As  many  trades  as  fingers.  Thoreau's  regular  oc 
cupations  —  besides  his  main  vocation  of  literature,  which  brought 
him  in  but  little  money  —  were  teaching,  surveying,  manufacturing 
lead-pencils,  and  lecturing,  but  in  his  young  manhood,  as  he  indi 
cates  here,  he  earned  an  occasional  dollar  by  manual  labor  of  vari 
ous  kinds.  In  connection  with  his  lead-pencil  business,  which  de 
scended  to  him  from  his  father,  he  dealt  in  plumbago,  as  is  shown 
by  numerous  scraps  of  correspondence  preserved  among  his  papers. 
Last  line.  Salt.  Note  that  this  is  not  included  among  the  "  experi 
ments  that  failed."  In  most  editions  of  Walden  after  the  first,  the 
brace,  through  a  printer's  error,  is  made  to  include  this  necessary 
of  life. 

Page  66,  line  21.  Their  bills  have  not  yet  been  received.  Nat 
urally,  since  the  washing  and  mending  were  done  at  home.  Tho 
reau's  writings  are  full  of  such  touches  of  dry  humor  as  this.  Note 
that  the  syntax  of  this  sentence  is  a  little  weak. 

Page  67,  line  2  from  bottom.  A  comparative  statement.  Is  Tho 
reau  quite  logical  here  ?  Is  it  a  comparative  or  a  positive  statement 
that  he  has  been  making  ? 

Page  68,  line  6.  Purslane.  This  familiar  weed  is  sometimes  used  for 

greens. 

Line  9.  Trivial  name.  A  technical  term,  signifying  the  second  part 
of  the  scientific  name,  the  "  specific  "  name,  or  that  applied  to  the 


378  NOTES 

species,  the  first  part  being  the  "  generic,"  as  applied  to  the  genus. 
Oleracea  means  "  partaking  of  the  nature  of  herbs  or  vegetables.'* 

Page  69,  line  1.  Egyptian  his  hatching  eggs.  From  ancient  times 
the  Egyptians  have  hatched  eggs  artificially.  Sir  Gardner  Wilkin 
son,  in  his  important  work  on  The  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  An 
cient  Egyptians  (edition  of  1847),  describes  at  length  the  method  in 
use  in  modern  Egypt,  which  he  believes  to  have  been  handed  down 
from  the  ancients,  and  quotes  the  historian  Diodorus  (i,  74)  :  "  Dis 
pensing  with  the  incubation  of  the  hens,  they  with  their  own  hands 
bring  the  eggs  to  maturity ;  and  the  young  chickens  thus  produced 
are  not  inferior  in  any  respect  to  those  hatched  by  natural  means." 
Line  15.  Spiritus.  Latin  for  "  breath  "  and  also  for  "  spirit."  Since 
it  means  both  breath  and  spirit,  it  serves  Thoreau's  purpose  better 
than  either  of  the  English  words.  Why  ? 

Page  70,  lines  8,  9.  Marcus  Porcius  Cato.  Cato  the  Censor  (B.  o. 
234-149),  a  Roman  statesman  and  soldier,  author  of  De  He  Mustica 
(Concerning  Rural  Matters),  a  book  which  Thoreau  quotes  freely 
in  the  Journal. 

Page  71,  lines  10-12.  For  -we  can  make  liquor,  etc.  These  lines 
are  from  a  song  or  piece  of  verse  entitled  "  New  England's  Annoy 
ances,"  written  by  one  of  the  early  settlers  and  said  to  be  "the  old 
est  known  composition  in  English  verse  by  an  American  Colonist." 
"  Notes  and  Queries  "  in  the  Boston  Transcript  quotes  it  in  full  from 
Fugitive  Poetry  in  the  Chandos  Classics,  and  cites  a  slightly  different 
version  in  Lewis's  History  of  Lynn,  quoted  by  Barber  in  his  Histor 
ical  Collections  of  Massachusetts.  Thoreau  probably  saw  it  in  Barber 
and  was  attracted  by  the  quaint  and  humorous  lines. 
Last  line.  Squatting.  It  was  on  his  friend  Emerson's  land  that  he 
squatted. 

Page  72,  line  13.  Their  thirds.  Their  widows'  thirds  in  inheritance. 

Page  73,  line  9.  Exuviae.  Things  cast  off  (Latin). 
Line  15.  The  muskrat  will  gnaw  his  third  leg  off  to  be 
free.  In  the  Journal,  vol.  i,  p.  481  (undated),  Thoreau  quotes  from 
a  conversation  with  a  Concord  trapper,  one  George  Melvin,  the  as 
tonishing  statement :  "  4  Oh,  the  muskrats  are  the  greatest  fellows  to 
gnaw  their  legs  off.  Why,  I  caught  one  once  that  had  just  gnawed 
his  third  leg  off,  this  being  the  third  time  he  had  been  trapped ; 
and  he  lay  dead  by  the  trap,  for  he  could  n't  run  on  one  leg.'  " 
Neither  Melvin  nor  Thoreau  seems  to  have  offered  any  explanation 
of  how  a  muskrat  could  run  on  two  legs,  and  the  story  as  it  stands 
can  hardly  be  credited.  It  seems  to  be  an  undisputed  fact  that 
many  animals  when  caught  in  steel  traps  will  gnaw  off  the  leg  to 
free  themselves,  and  it  is  not  incredible  that  one  caught  a  second 
time  might  gnaw  off  the  second  leg,  but  beyond  that  the  thing 


NOTES  379 

appears  to  be  impossible.  The  Journal  goes  on  to  say:  "Such 
tragedies  are  enacted  even  in  this  sphere  and  along  our  peaceful 
streams,  and  dignify  at  least  the  hunter's  trade.  Only  courage  does 
anywhere  prolong  life,  whether  of  man  or  beast." 

Page  74,  line  10  from  bottom.  The  moon  will  not  sour  milk  nor 
taint  meat  of  mine.  Alluding  to  a  current  popular  superstition. 

Page  75,  line  3.  "  The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them." 

—  Shakespeare,  Julius  Caesar,  Act  III,  Sc.  ii,  line  80. 
Line  8.  Bonfire.  The  word  was  formerly  applied  to  fires  for  the 

burning  of  heretics,  proscribed  books,  etc. 

Line  9.  Auction.  The  emphasis  is  on  the  derivation  of  the  word, 
from  the  Latin  audio,  meaning  an  increasing,  that  is  of  the  price 
by  bidding. 

Line  21.  Bartram.  William  Bartram  (1739-1823),  an  American 
botanist,  son  of  the  botanist  John  Bartram.  The  book  quoted  from 
is  his  Travels  through  North  and  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  etc. 

Page  76,  lines  15-17.  The  Mexicans,  etc.  See  the  account  in  Pres- 
cott's  Conquest  of  Mexico,  Book  i,  Chapter  iv. 

Page  77,  line  9.  A  good  business.  See  Journal,  vol.  i,  p.  251,  April 
20,  1841 :  "  There  are  certain  current  expressions  and  blasphemous 
moods  of  viewing  things,  as  when  we  say  '  he  is  doing  a  good  busi 
ness,'  more  profane  than  cursing  and  swearing.  There  is  death  and 
sin  in  such  words.  Let  not  the  children  hear  them."  This  passage 
was  printed  with  two  or  three  verbal  alterations  in  the  first  edition 
of  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  but  was  omitted 
from  the  second  edition.  The  blasphemy,  of  course,  consists  in 
calling  a  lucrative  business  a  good  one. 

Line  22.  To  keep  the  flocks  of  Admetus.  Apollo,  god  of 
poetry  and  song,  was  compelled  for  nine  years  to  tend  the  flocks 
of  Admetus,  king  of  Pherae. 

Page  80,  line  3  after  break.  Philanthropic  enterprises.  In  spite 
of  a  certain  impatience  with  formal  charities,  Thoreau  was  by  no 
means  uncharitable  towards  the  poor  people  of  Concord  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact. 

Page  81,  line  3  from  bottom.  Robin  Goodfellow.  The  well-dis 
posed  but  mischievous  elf  also  known  as  Puck. 

Page  82,  line  3  from  bottom.  Howard.  The  famous  English  philan 
thropist  John  Howard  (1726?-1790). 

Page  84,  line  2.  Intra.  Inside  (Latin),  as  extra  means  literally  outside. 

Page  85,  line  5.  Mrs.  Fry.  Elizabeth  Fry  (1780-1845),  an  English 
woman  who  accomplished  much  in  the  field  of  prison-reform. 
Lines  20,  21.  Charity  that  hides  a  multitude  of  sins.    See 
1  Peter,  iv,  8. 

Page  86,  lines  3  and  2  from  bottom.  Do  not  let  your  left  hand 


380  NOTES 

know  what  your  right  hand  does.  "  But  when  thou  doest 
alms,  let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand  doeth."  — 
Matthew,  vi,  3. 

Page  87,  lines  3,  4.  Our  manners  have  been  corrupted  by 
communication   with  the   saints.   "Evil  communications 
corrupt  good  manners."  —  1  Corinthians,  xv,  33. 
Line  5.  Cursing  of  God  and  enduring  Him  forever.  Accord 
ing  to  the  Westminster  Catechism,  the  chief  end  of  man  is  "  to 
glorify  God  and  to  enjoy  him  forever." 
Line  15.  Indian,  botanic,  magnetic.  So  quacks  have  been  wont 

to  characterize  their  methods. 

Line  22.  Sadi.  A  famous  Persian  poet  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Page  89,  last  line.  T.  Carew.  Thomas  Carew,  an  English  poet  of  the 

Dearly  seventeenth  century. 
Page  91,  line  15.  The  Hollowell  place.  On  the  Sudbury  River, 

between  the  Corner  road  and  Nut  Meadow  Brook. 
Page  92,  line  3.  Survey.  Thoreau  was  a  surveyor  by  occupation  and 
a  punster  on  occasion.  The  lines  are  quoted  from  Cowper's  "  Verses 
supposed  to  be  written  by  Alexander  Selkirk." 
Lines  9-12.  Put  his  farm  in  rhyme  .  .  .  skimmed  milk.  Note 
the  changes  in  the  figures,  —  from  a  farm  to  a  cow,  from  the  cow 
to  her  milk.  Mixed  metaphors  are  usually  undesirable,  but  in  this 
case  the  things  are  naturally  related  together   and  the  effect  is 
rather  pleasing  than  otherwise. 

Page  93,  line  1.  Atlas.  According  to  the  Greek  myth,  the  Titan  who 
bore  the  sky  upon  his  shoulders.  In  art  he  is  sometimes  represented 
as  supporting  the  spherical  world. 
Page  94,  line  2.  As  I  have  said.  See  page  2. 

Lines  2,  3.  Ode  to  dejection.  Doubtless  alluding  to  Coleridge's 

poem  so  entitled. 

Line  19.  A  certain  house  on  a  mountain.  A  saw-miller'a 
house  in  the  Catskills,  where  he  lodged  in  the  summer  of  1844.  It 
is  described  in  the  Journal,  vol.  i,  pp.  361,  362. 

Page  95,  lines  1,  2.  From  hand  to  hand.  Thoreau  sold  the  boat  in 
which  he  made  his  Concord  and  Merrimack  voyage  to  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  who  wrote  of  it  in  his  Journal  (published  as  American 
Note-Books),  and  later  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  William  Ellery 
Chanuing,  poet  and  friend  of  Thoreau. 
Line  11.  The  Harivansa.  A  Sanskrit  poem,  one  of  the  sacred 

books  of  the  Hindoos.  Also  spelled  Harivansha. 
Page  97,  line  6.  Keep  butter  cool.  The  well  is  the  old-fashioned 

country  refrigerator. 

Line  10  from  bottom.  Damodara.  A  name  given  to  the  divine  hero 
Krishna  of  the  Hindoo  mythology .  flis  exploits  are  related  in  the 
Mahabharata. 


NOTES  381 

Page  98,  line  4.  Pleiades,  Hyades,  Aldebaran,  Altair.  The 
first  two  are  constellations,  and  the  last  two  stars  of  the  first  mag 
nitude,  Aldebaran  being  in  the  constellation  of  the  Hyades. 

Lines  21-24.  Characters  were  engraven,  etc.  Commentary  of  the 
philosopher  Tsang  on  Confucius'  The  Great  Learning,  Chapter  ii. 

Last  line,  and  page  99,  line  1.  Singing  its  own  -wrath  and 
wandering.  The  Iliad  begins,  "  Sing,  goddess,  of  the  wrath  of 
Achilles,  the  son  of  Peleus  " ;  and  the  Odyssey,  "  Tell  me,  muse, 
of  the  much-travelled  man  who  wandered  far." 

Page  99,  line  2.  Till  forbidden.  This  phrase,  abbreviated  "  t  f," 
is  the  printer's  sign  for  a  standing  advertisement. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Transpire.  Is  this  a  good  word  here  ? 

Line  7  from  bottom.  The  Vedas.  The  early  sacred  books  of  India. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  Memnoii.  See  note  on  p.  40. 
Page  100,  last  two  lines.  I  went  to   the  woods   because  I 
wished  to  live  deliberately,  etc.    See  p.  21.  The  two  state 
ments  are  not  conflicting.  There  is  more  than  one  motive  for  many 
human  actions. 

Page  101,  line  6.  Spartan-like.  The  ancient  Spartans  lived  a  brave, 
hardy,  simple  life,  to  fit  themselves  for  war  and  the  service  of  the 
state. 

Line  16.  The  chief  end  of  man.  From  the  Westminster  Cate 
chism. 

Lines  18, 19.  The  fable  tells  us  that  we  -were  long  ago 
changed  into  men.  "  According  to  fable,  when  the  island  of 
^Egina  was  depopulated  by  sickness,  at  the  instance  of  /Eacus, 
Jupiter  turned  the  ants  into  men,  that  is,  as  some  think,  he  made 
men  of  the  inhabitants  who  lived  meanly  like  ants."  —  A  Week  on 
the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  Riverside  Edition,  p.  72. 

Lines  19,  20.  Like  pygmies  we  fight  with  cranes.  Homer  in 
book  iii  of  the  Iliad  tells  of  the  pygmies  and  their  battles  with 
the  cranes. 

Line  21.  Clout  upon  clout.  Patch  upon  patch.  The  expression 
may  have  been  suggested  to  Thoreau  by  its  use  in  the  song  "  New 
England's  Annoyances,"  quoted  on  p.  71.  Speaking  of  the  diffi 
culty  of  getting  new  clothing  in  the  Colony,  the  writer  says,  — 

"  If  we  get  a  garment  to  cover  without, 
Our  other  in-garments  are  clout  upon  clout." 

Page  102,  line  3.  Dead  reckoning.  A  nautical  term  which  is  de 
fined  in  the  dictionaries. 

Line  7.  German  Confederacy.  The  German  Confederation, 
which  included  Austria,  existed  from  1815  to  1866,  when  it  was 
succeeded  by  the  North  German  Confederation,  Austria  withdraw 
ing.  The  present  Empire  was  established  in  1871. 


382  NOTES 

Page  103,  lines  5,  6.  Riding  on  a  rail.  Note  the  play  upon  words. 
Lines  22,  23.  Setting  the  bell.  Turning  it  till  it  rests  mouth 
upward  just  beyond  the  balancing-point,  kept  from  going  farther 
by  the  "  stop-stay's  "  coming  into  contact  with  the  "  slider."  The 
next  pull  of  the  bell-rope  brings  it  back  down  again,  carries  it  up 
the  other  side,  and  sets  it  again  there.  Each  pull  of  the  rope  gives 
the  bell  a  complete  revolution  beginning  and  ending  mouth  up 
ward.  This  method  of  ringing  is  called  ringing  "high,"  and  it  is 
the  one  used  in  calling  the  congregation  to  church.  The  blows  of 
the  clapper  come  more  slowly  than  when  the  bell  is  rung  "  low," 
that  is  without  setting  it,  which  was  the  old-fashioned  way  of 
giving  the  fire-alarm.  For  the  above  information  the  editor  is  in 
debted  to  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Arthur  H.  Nichols  of  Boston,  one 
of  the  few  Americans  who  are  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  old 
English  art  of  bell-ringing. 

Page  104,  line  12.  Wachito  River.  The  Washita  River,  as  it  is  now 
commonly  called,  rises  in  Arkansas  and  empties  into  the  Hed 
River  in  Louisiana.  "  Gouging  "  is,  or  was,  a  barbarous  practice 
of  the  inhabitants  of  that  region  in  connection  with  fighting.  It 
was  done  by  a  peculiar  turn  of  the  thumb.  It  has  also  been  prac 
ticed  in  some  parts  of  Europe,  as  in  Norway. 

Line  14.  Rudiment  of  an  eye.  Alluding  to  the  blind  fishes  of  the 
Mammoth  Cave  of  Kentucky. 

Page  105,  line  7  from  bottom.  French  Revolution.  "This  was 
written  before  the  last  ( 1848)  Revolution  broke  out ;  but  a  revolu 
tion  in  France  might  be  expected  any  day ;  and  it  would  be  as  easy 
to  tell  where  it  would  end,  before  it  was  born,  as  after  it  was  five 
years  old."  —  Thoreau's  footnote  in  an  early  draft  of  Walden, 
printed  by  Mr.  Sauborn  as  a  note  in  the  Bibliophile  edition  of  the 
book. 

Page  106,  line  3.  Come  to  the  end  of  them.  In  his  personal  copy 
of  Walden,  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Paul  Lemperly  of  Cleve 
land,  Ohio,  Thoreau  altered  this  to  "  accomplish  it." 

Page  107,  line  18.  Mill-dam.  This  was  the  spot  in  the  centre  of  the 
village  of  Concord  where  the  inhabitants  congregated  to  gossip. 

Page  108,  line  12  from  bottom.  Tied  to  the  mast  like  Ulysses. 
Ulysses,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  his  sailors  tie  him  to  the  mast 
in  passing  the  Sirens,  while  their  ears  were  stopped  to  prevent  their 
hearing  the  fatal  song. 

Line  2  from  bottom.  In  place.  In  their  original  positions ;  a  geo 
logical  term. 

Page  112,  line  11.  Delphi  and  Dodona.  The  two  principal  oracles 
of  the  Greeks  were  at  the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  in  Phocis 
and  at  the  temple  of  Zeus  at  Dodona  in  Epirus. 


NOTES  383 

Line  16.  The  athletes.  That  is,  the  athletes  of  ancient  Greece, 

who  underwent  very  severe  training. 
Line  2  from  bottom.  Born  again.  See  John,  iii,  3. 

Page  114,  line  1.  Alexander  carried  the  Iliad  with  him.  He  ia 
also  said  to  have  slept  nightly  with  the  Iliad  and  his  sword  under 
his  pillow. 

Page  115,  line  11.  Homer  has  never  yet  been  printed-in  Eng 
lish.  That  is,  the  true  spirit  of  the  old  Greek  poet  cannot  be 
adequately  expressed  in  English  or  in  any  other  modern  language. 
Line  8  from  bottom.  The  Vaticans.  The  Vatican,  the  Papal  palace 
in  Rome,  contains  a  large  library.  Thoreau  is  looking  forward  to 
the  time  when  all  such  libraries  shall  be  filled  full  with  the  great 
religious  and  poetical  works  of  the  world  and  of  all  ages. 
Line  7  from  bottom.  Zendavestas.  The  Zend-Avesta  is  the  bible 
of  Zoroastrianism,  a  religion  of  Persia  and  India. 

Page  116,  line  9.  What  we  have  to  stand  on  tip-toe  to  read. 
That  which  cannot  be  read  without  making  an  effort,  and  reaching 
up  to  it. 

Line  14.  The  lowest  and  foremost  form.  In  the  old  district 

schools  the  youngest  children  sat  on  a  low  form,  or  bench,  in  front. 

Line  3  from  bottom.  The  course  of  their  true  love.  "  The 

course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth."  —  A  Midsummer-Night's 

Dream,  Act  I,  Sc.  i,  line  134. 

Page  117,  line  14.  To  appear  in  monthly  parts.  This  method  of 
publication  obtained  to  some  extent  in  the  middle  of  the  last  cen 
tury,  and  was  particularly  adapted  to  the  long  novels  in  vogue  in 
those  days.  The  novels  were  issued  thus  separately,  not  as  aerials 
in  magazines. 

Line  17.  Corrugations.  The  gizzards,  or  principal  stomachs,  of 
fowls  and  all  seed-eating  birds  are  provided  with  muscular,  cor 
rugated  walls. 

Page  118,  line  8.  Woodchopper.  This  man's  characteristics  are 
described  at  some  length  on  pp.  159-166.  His  name  was  Alek  The- 
rien,  and  he  appears  again  and  again  in  the  Journal. 

Page  119,  line  7  from  bottom.  Tit-men.  Little  men,  pygmies.  The 
word  seems  to  have  been  original  with  Thoreau.  He  used  it  also 
in  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  Riverside  Edition, 
p.  503,  and  in  the  Journal,  vol.  i,  p.  373.  The  word  "  tit "  appar 
ently  meant  originally  something  small.  It  is  now  chiefly  used  in 
such  compounds  as  "  titmouse  "  and  "titlark." 

Page  121,  line  1.  Lyceum.  The  Lyceum  in  Concord  was  an  organi 
zation  which  provided  lectures  and  lecture-courses  by  various 
persons  in  a  central  hall.  Thoreau  was  actively  interested  in  it. 
Lectures  were  very  popular  in  New  England  in  the  middle  of  the 


384  NOTES 

last  century,  and  were  an  important  element  in  the  culture  of  com 
munities.  Every  considerable  town  had  its  lyceum.  The  original 
Lyceum  in  Athens  was  a  gymnasium  near  the  temple  of  Apollo 
Lycius,  where  Aristotle  walked,  and  taught  his  philosophy. 

Line  14.  Abe"lard.  Pierre  Ab&ard  (1079-1142),  a  celebrated 
French  theologian  and  philosopher. 

Line  22.  Utopian.  Sir  Thomas  More's  (1478-1535)  Utopia  is  a 
book  describing  an  imaginary  island  and  the  ideal  social  state  ex 
isting  upon  it.  Hence  ' '  Utopian  "  means  ideal  but  impracticable. 
Page  122,  line  6.  Olive-Branches.  The  Olive  Branch  was  a  Meth 
odist  weekly  published  in  Boston  for  a  number  of  years  beginning 
with  1836. 

Line  9.  Harper  &  Brothers  and  Redding  &  Co.  The  old 
New  York  publishing  house  of  Harper  &  Bros,  is  still  in  active 
business.  George  W.  Redding  &  Co.  were  booksellers  at  No.  8 
State  St.,  Boston. 

Page  123,  last  line  but  one.  Bath.  That  is,  in  the  pond.  That  is  why 
Thoreau  makes  a  point  of  mentioning  it.  The  daily  bath  was  not 
in  those  days  the  universal  custom  that  it  has  since  become. 
Page  124,  line  6.  Corn  in  the  night.  On  warm  summer  nights  the 
Indian  corn  is  said  to  grow  so  rapidly  that  the  process  can  be 
heard. 

Line  22.  The  Puri  Indians.  A  Brazilian  tribe,  of  a  very  low  order 

of  social  development. 

Page  127,  line  7.  Tantivy.  A  hunting-cry  indicating  that  the  chase 
is  at  full  speed,  supposed  to  be  imitative  of  the  sound  of  the  hunt 
ing-horn.  The  accent  is  on  the  second  syllable,  —  tan-tiv'y.  The 
word  is  here  used  figuratively,  of  course,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to 
assume  that  its  meaning  is  otherwise  different  from  the  original 
one.  See  also  p.  177,  last  line. 

Line  14.  Reed-birds.  Thoreau  probably  used  the  word  indefinitely 
to  indicate  any  small  birds  among  the  sedges  and  reeds.  The  reed- 
bird  of  the  Middle  States  is  the  bobolink  of  New  England,  and 
Thoreau  knew  it  only  by  the  latter  name. 

Lines  16,  17.  The  beat  of  a  partridge.  The  drum  of  the  ruffed 
grouse,  almost  invariably  called  partridge  in  New  England. 

Verse.  "  In  truth,  our  village  has  become  a  butt,"  etc. 
From  a  poem  entitled  "Walden  Spring,"  by  Thoreau's  friend 
William  Ellery  Channing,  second  of  the  name.  It  was  printed  in 
The  Woodman,  and  other  Poems  (1848). 

Page  128,  lines  9  and  8  from  bottom.  Indian  huckleberry  hills. 
The  hills  where  the  Indians  formerly  gathered  huckleberries. 
Thoreau  sometimes  used  the  word  huckleberries  to  include  blue 
berries. 


NOTES  385 

Page  129,  lines  6,  7.  Cloud-compeller.  A  name  for  the  god  Zeus, 

or  Jupiter. 
Page  130,  lines  23,  24.  Dismal  Swamp.  The  name  is  used  gener- 

ically ;  no  particular  swamp  is  referred  to. 

Page  131,  line  11.  Atropoa.  One  of  the  Fame.  The  Fate  who  cut  the 
thread  of  man's  life.  See  note  on  p.  28. 

Lines  17,  18.  Sons  of  Tell.  The  allusion,  of  course,  is  to  the  legend 
of  William  Tell  shooting  the  apple  from  his  son's  head. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  Buena  Vista.  In  the  Battle  of  Buena  Vista, 
fought  Feb.  22  and  23,  1847,  the  Americans  won  a  victory  over  the 
Mexicans  in  the  face  of  great  odds. 

Last  line.  Three-o'clock-in-the-morning  courage.  Thoreau's 
memory  was  at  fault  as  to  the  precise  hour  in  the  morning  named 
by  Napoleon.  "  As  to  moral  courage,  he  had  found  very  rare,  he 
said,  that  of  two  hours  after  midnight,  that  is  to  say  the  courage 
of  the  unprepared  ...  he  had  found  that  he  himself  possessed  the 
courage  of  two  hours  after  midnight  in  the  greatest  degree."  — 
Memorial  de  Ste.-Helene,  by  Las  Cases. 

Page  132,  line  4.  Great  Snow.  Probably  no  particular  storm  is  re 
ferred  to.  There  was  a  "  Great  Snow  "  in  1717  and  another  in  1780, 
and  very  likely  still  other  snowstorms  have  been  so  called. 

Line  12.  Daisies  and  the  nests  of  field  mice.  Thoreau  is  al 
luding  to  ^Robert  Burns's  ploughshare  and  his  poems  "  To  a 
Mountain  Daisy  "  and  "  To  a  Mouse." 

Line  11  from  bottom.  Long  Wharf.  In  Boston. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Palm-leaf.  The  making  of  hats  from  palm* 
leaves  was  formerly  a  Massachusetts  industry.  These  hats,  such  as 
the  Panama  hat,  are  now  made  in  the  countries  where  the  palms 
grow,  and  where  labor  is  much  cheaper  than  in  this  country. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Cocoanut  husks.  The  fibre  of  the  husk  is 

called  coir,  and  is  used  in  making  door-mats  and  matting. 
Page  133,  line  6.  Cedar.   The  "cedar"  of  the  Maine  woods  is  the 
arbor- vitse  (Thuya  occidentalis).  Its  wood  is  used  for  fence-posts, 
railroad-ties,  etc.,  and  it  is  grown  largely  for  hedges  and  orna 
mental  purposes. 

Line  8.  Thomaston  lime.  Lime  from  Thomaston,  Maine. 

Line  13.  Milwaukee.  At  the  time  when  Thoreau  was  writing,  Mil 
waukee  was  a  young  and  rapidly  growing  city,  fast  filling  up  with 
immigrants  from  Germany. 

Page  135,  lines  3, 4.  "  To  be  the  mast,"  etc.  —Milton,  Paradise  Lost, 
book  i,  lines  293,  294. 

Lines  5,  6.  Cattle  of  a  thousand  hills.  "  The  cattle  upon  a  thou 
sand  hills."  —  Psalm  1,  10. 

Lines  13, 14.  The  mountains  .  .  .  skip  like  rams  and  the 
little  hills  like  lambs.  See  Psalm  cxiv,  4. 


386  NOTES 

Line  20.  The  Feterboro'  Hills.  In  southern  New  Hampshire. 
They  form  Concord's  northwest  horizon. 

Page  136,  line  5.  I  cross  it  like  a  cart-path.  He  finally  came  to 
realize  its  possibilities  as  a.  footpath,  however  !  "  The  railroad  ia 
perhaps  our  pleasantest  and  wildest  road."  —  Journal,  vol.  iii, 
p.  342. 

Page  137,  lines  5,  6.  In  the  horizon.  Thoreau  habitually  used  this 
somewhat  antiquated  form  instead  of  the  more  common  "  #n  the 
horizon." 

Page  138,  line  4.  U-lu-lu.  The  word  seems  to  have  been  adapted  by 
Thoreau  from  the  Latin  u/uZo,  to  howl,  to  utter  a  mournful  cry. 
Ulula  was  the  Latin  name  for  a  species  of  owl.  The  word  is  trans 
lated  "screech  owl,"  but  the  bird  was  not  nearly  related  to  our 
American  screech  owl,  unhappily  so  named. 

Line  5.  JBen  Jonsouian.  In  thus  alluding  to  Ben  Jonson  it  seems 
probable  that  Thoreau  had  in  mind  the  witches'  scene  in  Jon- 
son's  "  Masque  of  Queens,"  in  which  the  hag's  inform  their  dame 
of  the  various  grewsome  things  they  have  gathered  to  go  into  their 
cauldron. 

Line  11  from  bottom.  Bor-r-r-r-n.  This  is  intended  to  suggest  a 
quaver  on  the  vowel,  not  a  trill  of  the  r.  The  Journal  (vol.  i,  p.  379) 
with  "  bor-or-or-or-orn  "  perhaps  indicates  the  sound  more  nearly, 
the  r,  of  course,  after  the  New  England  fashion,  not  being  pro 
nounced  itself,  but  simply  governing  the  sound  of  the  0. 
Line  5  from  bottom.  A  hooting  owl.  See  note  on  "  cat  owl," 
p.  300. 

Page  139,  line  12  from  bottom.  Single  spruce.  In  his  own  copy  of 
Walden.  Thoreau  corrected  this  to  "double  spruce,"  which  is  an 
old  name  for  the  black  spruce,  the  common  spruce  of  the  New 
England  swamps,  and  the  only  species  found  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Concord.  The  "  single,"  or  white,  spruce  is  more  northerly 
in  its  range,  but  is  found  on  the  Maine  coast  and  in  the  forests 
of  northern  New  England.  The  common  spruce  of  northern  New 
England,  however,  and  ranging  much  farther  south  than  the  white, 
is  the  red  spruce,  a  tree  which  in  Thoreau's  time  was  not  dis 
tinguished  from  the  black  spruce.  The  significance  of  the  words 
"  single  "  and  "  double  "  as  applied  to  the  white  and  black  spruces 
is  not  at  all  clear. 

Page  140,  line  2.  Stygian.  The  river  Styx  in  Grecian  mythology 
flowed  around  Hades,  the  world  of  the  dead.  Hence  Stygian  means 
"of  Hades,"  "  of  the  lower  world." 

Line  11.  Aldermanic.  The  traditional  alderman  is  a  corpulent 
person,  especially  as  to  the  paunch.  Green  turtle  and  other  rich 
and  expensive  foods  are  said  to  be  responsible  for  this. 


NOTES  387 

Line  12.  Heart-leaf.  The  floating-heart  (Nymphoides  lacunosum). 
Line  19.  Down  to  his  mark.  In  drinking-bouts  it  was  customary 

to  pass  round  a  large  cup  with  marks  on  the  inside  to  indicate  how 

much  each  man  was  expected  to  drink. 
Line  6  from  bottom.  Under  the  pond.  As  one  would  say  "  under 

the  table." 
Page  141,  line  16.  Healthy,  wealthy,  and  wise. 

"  Early  to  bed  and  early  to  rise 
Makes  a  man  healthy,  wealthy,  and  wise." 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  Poor  Richard's  Almanack. 

Page  142,  line  4.  Cat  owl.  A  name  for  the  great  horned  owl  (Bubo 
virginianus),  the  face  of  which,  with  its  large  "horns,"  or  "  ears," 
bears  some  resemblance  to  that  of  a  cat. 
Line  5.  Laughing  loon.   A  common  note  of  the  loon  resembles 

wild,  demoniac  laughter. 
Line  6.  Lark.  That  is,  a  meadowlark. 

Page  145,  line  8.  "  The  world  to  darkness  and  to  me."  From 

Gray's  "  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard." 

Line  11.  Hung.  "  Hanged  "  is  the  form  preferred  in  this  sense,  but 
Thoreau,  like  most  good  writers,  did  not  always  bind  himself  by 
the  rules  which  lesser  men  have  to  follow. 

Line  17.  Black  melancholy.  The  word  "melancholy"  is  from 
two  Greek  words  signifying  "  black  bile,"  an  imaginary  secretion 
which  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  physiologists  supposed  to  be  the 
cause  of  melancholy. 

Line  19.  ^Eolian  music.  ^Eolus  was  the  Greek  god  of  the  winds. 
An  aeolian  harp  is  an  instrument  provided  with  strings  for  the  wind 
to  play  upon. 

Page  146,  verse.  "  Mourning  untimely  consumes  the  sad,"  etc. 
From  a  metrical  version  of  James  Macpherson's  prose  "  transla 
tion  "  of  the  Gaelic  poem  "  Croma,"  by  Ossian.  It  is  now  generally 
believed  that  Ossian  was  only  a  legendary  character,  and  that  the 
poems  which  Macpherson  pretended  to  have  translated  were  inven 
tions  of  his  own. 

Page  147,  line  13  from  bottom.  Men  frequently  say  to  me.  In 
transcribing  this  and  the  following  sentence  from  his  Journal, 
where  doubtless  he  first  wrote  them,  Thoreau  seems  to  have  neg 
lected  to  change  the  tense. 

Page  148,  line  4.  Beacon  Hill.  The  Massachusetts  State  House, 
where  the  legislature  meets,  occupies  the  summit  of  Beacon  Hill 
in  Boston.  In  Thoreau's  day  the  most  aristocratic  residential  section 
of  Boston  was  also  on  Beacon  Hill,  and  perhaps  Thoreau  couples 
it  with  the  Five  Points  for  the  sake  of  the  contrast. 

The  Five  Points.  A  down-town  section  of  New  York,  for- 


388  NOTES 

merly  famed  as  the  most  evil  part  of  the  city,  but  now  invaded  by 
business.  It  was  so  named  on  account  of  an  intersection  of  streets 
forming  five  points,  the  name  becoming  extended  to  cover  a  con 
siderable  district. 
Lineal 2.  A  fair  view.  The  man's  property,  accumulated  and  kept 

iy  sordid  labor,  did  not  appear  fair,  or  beautiful,  to  Thoreau. 
Line  18.  Brighton.  A  town  near  Boston  and  now  a  part  of  that 

city.  It  was  the  seat  of  the  cattle-market  and  abattoir. 
Line  19.  Bright-town.  "  Bright "  is  a  favorite  name  for  oxen. 
Page  149,  line  8  from  bottom.  Indra.  One  of  the  chief  gods  of  the 

Hindoo  mythology.  He  was  the  head  of  the  gods  of  the  air. 
Page  152,  line  7.  Mock  sun.  A  parhelion,  or  sun-dog. 

Line  9.  Legion.  Alluding,  of  course,  to  the  devils  which  Jesus  cast 
out  from  the  man  with  an  unclean  spirit  in  the  country  of  the  Gad- 
aren/s.  "  And  he  asked  him,  What  is  thy  name  ?  And  he  answered, 
saying1,  My  name  is  Legion  :  for  we  are  many."  —  Mark,  v,  9. 
Lhfel2.  The  Mill  Brook.  A  brook  flowing  through  the  village  of 
/Concord. 

/Lines  24,  25.    Goffe  and  Whalley  were  two  of  the  "regicides" 
/       tinder  indictment  for  the  killing  of  King  Charles  I.  They  lay  in 
/  hiding  in  the  neighborhood  of  New  Haven,  Conn.,  and  later  near 

|/  Hadley,  Mass. 

Line  25.  He  is  thought  to  be  dead.  The  "  old  settler  and  origi 
nal  proprietor  "  was  probably  Pan,  the  Greek  god  of  flocks  and 
shepherds,  pastures  and  forests,  whose  dominion  has  been  extended 
by  some  later  writers  to  include  all  nature,  on  account  of  the  iden 
tity  of  his  name  in  the  nominative  case  with  irdv,  pan,  the  neuter 
gender  of  the  Greek  adjective  irds,  pas,  meaning  all.  The  familiar 
words  "  The  great  god  Pan  is  dead  "  come  from  Plutarch's  essay 
on  "  Why  the  Oracles  cease  to  give  Answers,"  wherein  a  story  is 
told  of  a  great  voice  having  been  heard  out  of  the  sea  address 
ing  a  sailor  on  board  ship  and  saying,  "  When  you  are  arrived  at 
Palodes,  take  care  to  make  it  known  that  the  great  god  Pan  is 
dead"  (Dr.  Robert  Midgley's  translation).  "Pan  is  dead"  formg 
the  refrain  to  Mrs.  Browning's  poem  "  The  Dead  Pan." 
Line  26.  An  elderly  dame.  Doubtless  Dame  Nature. 
Page  153,  line  11  from  bottom.  Old  Parrs.  Thomas  Parr,  who  died 
in  London  in  1635,  was  called  "  Old  Parr."  He  was  said  to  have 
been  born  in  1483,  which  would  make  his  age  152  years  at  the 
time  of  his  death. 

Line  8  from  bottom.   Acheron.   A  river  in  Hades. 
Page  154,  line  4.   Hygeia.   The  Greek  goddess  of  health. 

Line  5.   JEsculapius.   The  Greek  god  of  physicians  and  healing. 
Line  9.    Daughter  of  Juno  and  wild  lettuce.   Homer  calls 


is  to  the.,    ^r 
.he  ridicuJ^r 


NOTES  389 

Hebe  the  daughter  of  Jupiter  and  Juno,  that  is  of  Zeus  and  ITera, 
but,  according  to  other  accounts,  her  birth  was  the  result  of  her 
mother,  Juno,  having  eaten  heartily  of  wild  lettuce  at  a  banquet 
given  by  Jupiter.  (Bell's  New  Pantheon,  J.  Bell,  London,  1790.) 

Page  155,  line  2  from  bottom.  Tremont  or  Astor  or  Middlesex 
House.  The  Tremont  House  was  in  Boston,  the  Astor  House  in 
New  York,  and  the  Middlesex  House  in  Concord. 

Page  156,  line   1.    Ridiculous  mouse.    The   allusion 

Latin  fable  of  the  mountain  in  labor  and  the  birth  of  the  ridi 
Ills  rnus. 
Line  13.  Form  their  columns.   As  in  military  operations. 

Page  157,  lines  8,  9.  On  "whose  carpet  the  sun  rarely  fell. 
It  was  the  custom  in  the  country  to  keep  the  "best"  room,  or 
parlor,  closed  most  of  the  time,  with  the  shades  drawn  to  prevent 
the  carpet  from  fading.  The  room  was  reserved  for  the  most  im 
portant  occasions,  such  as  funerals  and  weddings. 

Page  158,  line  3.   Cerberus.   The  three-headed  dog  guarding  the 

entrance  to  Hades. 

Lines  7,  8.  Lines  of  Spenser.  The  lines  quoted  are  from  Ed 
mund  Spenser's  The  Faerie  Queene,  book  i,  Canto  i,  stanza  35. 
Line  1  after  verse.  Winslow.  Edward  Winslow  (1595-1655).  The 
narrative  from  which  Thoreau  quotes  is  given  in  full  in  Alexan 
der  Young's  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  the  Colony  of 
Plymouth  (Boston,  1841). 

Page  159,  line  3  from  bottom.  Homeric  or  Paphlagonian  man. 
This  man,  Therien,  has  been  referred  to  before.  See  note  to  p.  118. 
In  the  Trojan  War  the  Paphlagonians  came  to  the  assistance  of 
the  Trojans  from  their  country  on  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 
The  Bibliophile  Society's  edition  of  Walden  prints  a  note  of  Tho- 
reau's  from  his  manuscript :  "  Aleck  Therien,  he  calls  himself  — 
(Terrien,  —  Alexander  the  Farmer)."  This  explains  the  characteri 
zation  of  the  name  as  "  suitable  and  poetic,"  terrien  being  French 
for  "  landowner."  In  the  man's  native  French,  "  Therien"  would 
be  practically  equivalent  in  pronunciation  to  "  Terrien  "  ;  but,  in 
Concord,  as  the  editor  learns  from  Dr.  E.  W.  Emerson,  the  name 
was  pronounced  as  if  it  were  English,  —  The'ri-e'n. 

Page  160,  lines  10-15.    "  Why  are  you  in   tears,"  etc.    Iliad, 

beginning  of  book  xvi. 

Lines  16,  17.  "White  oak  bark  .  .  .  for  a  sick  man.  White 
oak  bark  is  a  powerful  astringent,  and  is  used  in  medicine  both 
externally  and  internally  to  a  limited  extent. 

Page   161,  lines  9-11.    He   was  n't    a-going  .  .  .  earned   his 

board.    An  indirect  quotation. 
Line  18.    How  thick  the  pigeons  are!    The  wild  pigeons, 


390  NOTES 

which  are  now  suspected  to  be  extinct,  were  common  in  Concord  in 
Thoreau's  time. 

Page  163,  line  12.  He  had  got  to.  "  He  "  evidently  refers  to  th« 
neighbor.  In  the  next  sentence  "  he  "  is  the  woodchopper. 

Page  165,  line  8.  Pecunia.  Whence  "pecuniary";  the  Latin  word 
for  money,  from  jaecus,  cattle. 

Page  167,  lines  4,  5.  Offering  to  lend  them  a  dipper.  One  Sun 
day,  as  we  learn  from  his  Journal  (vol.  iii,  p.  198),  he  lent  his 
dipper  to  two  young  women  who  came  asking  for  water,  but  they 
failed  to  return  it,  and  he  indulges  in  some  playful  anathemas 
upon  them.  "  They  will  never  know  peace  till  they  have  returned 
the  dipper.  In  all  the  worlds  this  is  decreed." 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Inferior.  One  of  Thoreau's  plays  upon  words. 
The  point  is  that,  humility  being  lowliness,  anything  exceeding 
it  must  be  lower  still. 

Page  169,  lines  11,  12.  I  have  too  good  a  memory  to  make 
that  necessary.  "  As  if  it  were  of  any  use,  when  a  man  failed  to 
make  any  memorable  impression  on  you,  for  him  to  leave  his  name. 
.  .  .  No !  I  kept  a  book  to  put  their  fames  in."  —  Journal,  vol.  iii, 
pp.  215,  216. 

Page  170,  line  8.  Com-munity,  a  league  for  mutual  defence. 
Thoreau  is  supposing  a  derivation  of  the  word  "  community  "  from 
the  Latin  munio,  to  defend,  with  the  prefix  com-,  signifying  to 
gether,  rather  than  from  communitas,  the  real  original  of  the  word. 
Communitas  comes  from  communis,  common,  general,  from  com- 
and  the  root  w?u,  to  bind. 
Line  17.  This  is  the  home  that  I  built.  The  allusion  here  is 

apparent  to  any  one  familiar  with  nursery  rhymes. 
Line  22.    Hen-harriers.    Hen-harrier  is  an  old  name  for  the  marsh 
hawk.  It  comes  from  England,  where  it  is  applied  to  a  similar 
species  of  hawk.  The  name  is  inappropriate,  as  applied  to  our  bird 
at  least,  for  the  marsh  hawk  seldom  disturbs  poultry. 
Line  2  from  bottom.    "  Welcome,  Englishmen ! "    The  words 
with  which   the   Indian  Samoset  greeted   the   Pilgrims  at  Ply 
mouth. 

Page  171,  line  10.  Antaeus.  A  giant,  son  of  Earth.  Whenever  he 
fell  to  the  ground,  he  arose  again  with  renewed  strength.  Her 
cules  killed  him  by  holding  him  up  away  from  contact  with  the 
earth,  his  mother. 

Line  13.  Johnswort.  St.  John's-wort,  one  species  of  which,  Hy- 
pericum  perforatum,  is  a  familiar  yellow  flower  of  the  summer 
fields. 

Page  172,  line  4.  Brought  from  Boston.  Thoreau's  father  removed 
his  family  from  Concord  to  Chelmsford  in  October,  1818,  and 


NOTES  '    391 

thence,  in  March,  1821,  to  Boston,  where  they  lived  about  two 
years,  returning  to  Concord  in  1823. 

Line  7.  My  flute.  The  flute  was  Thoreau's  only  musical  instru 
ment,  —  except  a  music-box,  which  he  prized  highly.  Miss  Louisa 
M.  Alcott,  the  story-writer,  who  knew  Thoreau,  wrote  a  poem  on 
"  Thoreau's  Flute  "  after  his  death. 

Line  11  from  bottom.  Arrowheads.  Thoreau  had  a  remarkable 
faculty  for  finding  these.  His  friend  the  poet  Channing  says  that 
a  companion  on  a  walk  once  remarked  to  him,  "  I  do  not  see  where 
you  find  your  Indian  arrowheads,"  whereupon,  "  stooping  to  the 
ground,  Henry  picked  one  up,  and  presented  it  to  him,  crying, 
'  Here  is  one.' "  His  collection  of  Indian  implements  was  depos 
ited  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Page  173,  line  14.   Wormwood.    Doubtless  the  Roman  wormwood, 
so  called,  or  ragweed  (Ambrosia  artemisicefolia) ,  is  referred  to. 

Lines  14,  15.  Piper  and  millet  grass.  "Piper-grass"  is  a 
name  for  the  couch-grass,  quitch-grass,  or  witch-grass  (Agropyron 
repens),  a  very  troublesome  weed.  The  name  is  commonly  used  in 
Concord,  and  perhaps  elsewhere,  but  appears  not  to  have  found 
its  way  into  the  books.  Miss  Jane  Hosmer,  of  Concord,  has  kindly 
identified  this  plant  for  the  editor.  As  to  the  millet  grass,  we 
learn  from  Thoreau's  Journal  (Aug.  25,  1858)  that  he  had  given 
that  name  to  two  species  of  grass,  Setaria  glauca  and  Setaria  viri- 
dis. 

Page  174,  line  4.   The  ministerial  husbandman.   He  is  probably 
alluding  to  some  passing  minister  who  made  the  exclamation. 

Line  5.  "  Corn,  my  boy,  for  fodder."  The  reply  of  the  minis 
ter's  companion. 

Line  8.  Grateful  dobbin.  Dobbin  is,  or  was,  a  favorite  name  for 
a  farm  horse.  Dobbin  was  grateful  for  any  stop  that  gave  him  a 
brief  rest. 

Line  17.  Mr.  Colman.  Rev.  Henry  Colman  (1785-1849),  who  de 
voted  himself  for  many  years  to  the  study  of  agriculture  and  rural 
economy.  He  was  State  Commissioner  for  the  Agricultural  Survey 
of  Massachusetts. 

Line  20.  English  hay.  The  various  species  of  grass  grown  for 
the  fodder  hay  crop  in  New  England  and  elsewhere  in  the  United 
States  are  not  native,  but  introduced  from  Europe.  The  hay  ia 
called  English  hay  to  distinguish  it  from  the  meadow  hay  har 
vested  for  bedding. 

Last  two  lines.   Ranz  des  Vaches.  The  air  played  or  sung  by 
the  Swiss  herdsmen  to  call  their  cattle.   It  varies  in  the  different 
cantons  of  Switzerland. 
Page  175,  line  9.  Paganini.  Niccol6  Paganini  (1784-1840)  was  a  cele- 


392  NOTES 

brated  Italian  violinist,  who  could  play  astonishingly  upon  a  single 
string. 

Line  10  from  bottom,  Music.  Thoreau  had  a  deep  feeling  for 
music,  which  to  him  was  perhaps  another  name  for  poetry.  He 
heard  it  in  many  natural  sounds,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter,  and  the  wind  over  the  telegraph-wire  excited  him  almost 
to  rhapsody  and  "  reminded  him  of  Anacreon."  He  heard  it,  too, 
in  a  hand-organ,  but  he  knew  nothing  of  the  more  elaborate  ex 
pressions  of  musical  art,  and  such  things  as  oratorios  had  no  par 
ticular  attractions  for  him. 

Page  176,  line  1.  A  sound  as  if  the  heavens  were  rent.  The 
sudden  swoops  or  dives  in  which  the  nighthawk  indulges  during 
the  breeding-season  are  accompanied  by  a  loud  booming  sound, 
probably  made  by  the  wings. 

Line  8.  The  hawk.   The  nighthawk,  however,  as  Thoreau  well 

knew,  is  not  a  hawk  at  all,  but  a  species  of  goatsucker. 
Page  177,  line  4.  "  Trainers."  Concord  had  a  drill-ground,  or  "  train 
ing  "-ground,  for  the  militia. 

Line  7.  Tintinnabulum.  Virgil's  word  in  the  passage  alluded  to, 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  Georgics,  is  tinni 
tus,  jingling.  Tintinnabulum  is  the  word  for  a  bell. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Spit  a  Mexican.  This  was  the  time  of  the 
Mexican  War. 

Last  line.  Tantivy.   See  note  on  p.  127, 1.  7. 

Page  178,  line  10.  Know  beans.  A  familiar  phrase  in  New  England, 
most  commonly  used  in  the  negative.  Of  an  ignorant  person,  or 
one  comparatively  ignorant,  it  is  said,  "  He  does  n't  know  beans." 

Line  3  from  bottom.  Hector.  The  Trojan  hero  in  the  Iliad.    He 

wore  a  plumed  helmet. 

Page  179,  line  6.  A  Pythagorean.  A  follower  of  Pythagoras,  the 
famous  Greek  philosopher  of  the  sixth  century  B.  C.  He  is  said  to 
have  prohibited  the  eating  of  beans,  as  well  as  of  meat  and  fish, 
by  his  disciples,  but  there  is  some  doubt  as  to  the  universality  of 
these  prohibitions. 

L-— -Line  8.  Voting.  Beans  were  used  in  voting  by  the  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans. 

Line  16.  Lsetation.  Manuring  or  manure.  The  word  occurs  fre 
quently  in  Evelyn  and  is  perhaps  confined  to  him. 

Line  17.  Repastination.  Digging  over  again. 

Lines  26,  27.  Sir  Kenelm  Digby.  An  English  diplomatist,  phi 
losopher,  and  author,  who  was  born  in  1603  and  died  in  1665.  He 
dabbled  extensively  in  the  occult  sciences,  and  was  also  in  some 
measure  a  serious  student  of  natural  phenomena.  Among  his  books 
is  A  Discourse  concerning  the  Vegetation  of  Plants. 


NOTES  393 

Page  180,  line  7.  Crow  fence.  A  white  string-  surrounding  a  field, 

for  use  as  a  scarecrow. 
Lines  11,   12.    Patremfamilias  .  .  .  oportet.    "  A  householder 

must  be  a  seller,  not  a  buyer."  From  Gate's  De  Re  Rustica. 
Line  8  from  bottom.  Plant  the  common  small  white  bush 
bean,  etc.  Thoreau  here  writes  half  in  fun,  half  in  earnest,  after 
the  style  of  the  agricultural  journals. 

Page  182,  line  7.  Our  ambassadors,  etc.  It  is  one  of  the  duties  of 
our  consuls  to  send  home  to  Washington  such  seeds  as  may  be  ex 
pected  to  be  of  value  to  our  farmers.  Formerly  Congress  distributed 
seeds,  but  this  work  is  now  done  by  the  Agricultural  Department. 

Page  183,  line  7.  Ceres.  The  Roman  goddess  of  agriculture. 

The  Terrestrial  Jove.  So  called  to  distinguish  him  from 
Pluto,  the  Infernal  Jove. 

Line  8.  Plutus.  The  god  of  wealth.  He  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
Pluto,  and  he  had  no  connection  in  mythology  with  the  infernal 
regions.  The  adjective  "infernal"  which  Thoreau  joins  to  him  is 
perhaps  a  slip  in  his  usually  accurate  classical  lore. 
Line  15.  Varro.  Marcus  Terentius  Varro  Reatinus  (B.  c.  116-28), 
author  of  a  De  Re  Rustica  and  many  other  books. 

Page  184,  lines  3-6.  The  ear  of  wheat,  etc.  Thoreau  got  his  ety 
mology  from  Varro.  See  the  Journal  entry  for  Jan.  29,  1854. 

Page  185,  line  2  from  bottom.  Redding  &  Company's.  George 
W.  Redding  &  Co.  kept  a  "  newspaper  depot "  at  No.  8  State  St., 
Boston,  in  the  thirties  and  a  "  periodical  depot "  there  in  the  forties, 
and  when  Thoreau  published  Walden  they  were  booksellers  on. 
State  St.  and  tea-dealers  on  Washington  St. 

Page  186,  line  5.  Etesian  winds.  The  name  given  by  Greek  and 
Latin  writers  to  the  northerly  winds  that  blow  regularly  in  the 
summer  season  over  the  ^Egean  Sea  and  the  eastern  Mediterranean. 
The  regularity  of  these  winds  is  doubtless  the  quality  that  Thoreau 
had  in  mind  in  using  the  figure. 

Line  6  from  bottom.  Lick.  A  colloquial  word  which  has  the  sanction 
of  old  and  good  usage. 

Page  187,  line  2.  Window  tax.  A  tax  was  formerly  levied  in  Eng 
land  on  the  windows  of  houses.  The  words  as  applied  to  Concord 
are  not  to  be  taken  literally. 

Line  14.  Orpheus.  According  to  legend,  the  earliest  Greek  poet 
and  a  son  of  Apollo.  He  sailed  as  one  of  the  Argonauts  in  search 
of  the  Golden  Fleece,  and  in  passing  the  Sirens  saved  himself  and 
his  companions  in  the  manner  described. 

Page  188,  line  4.  "  As  I  sailed."  This  is  the  refrain  of  the  grim  old 
ballad  of  Captain  Kidd,  which  is  really  not  at  all  suggestive  of 
"  genial  thoughts." 


394  NOTES 

Page  190,  lines  7,  8.  As  I  have  elsewhere  related.  In  an  essay 
entitled  "  Resistance  to  Civil  Government,"  printed  in  a  volume 
entitled  Esthetic  Papers,  edited  by  Elizabeth  P.  Peabody  and 
published  by  her  at  Boston  in  1849.  The  essay,  which  was  proba 
bly  originally  delivered  as  a  lecture,  is  included  among1  Thoreau'a 
Miscellanies  under  the  title  of  "  Civil  Disobedience."  The  incident 
is  characteristic  of  his  independence  of  spirit. 

Line  16.  Amok.  Usually  spelled  "amuck." 

Lines  26,  27.  A  fortnight  in  the  woods  of  Maine.  "  Ktaadn" 

in  The  Maine  Woods  is  the  narrative  of  this  excursion. 
Page  191,  line  6.  A  soldier  of  our  camp.  That  is,  one  of  our  friends, 
some  one  who  would  appreciate  the  book. 

Verse.  Nee  bella  fuerunt,  etc.  From  the  Elegies  of  Tibullua, 
book  i,  Elegy  10,  lines  7,  8. 

Last  five  lines,  "  You  .  .  .  bends."  —  Analects  of  Confucius,  Book 

xii,  Chapter  xix. 

Page  192,  lines  4,  5. /"To  fresh  woods  and  pastures  new." 
From  Milton's  Lycidas.  \ 

Line  7.  Fair  Haven  Hill.  A  hill  overlooking  Fair  Haven  Pond  on 
the  Sudbury  River  about  half  a  mile  from  Walden  Pond. 

Line  12.  Cow-boy .  The  farm  boy  who  drives  the  cows  to  and  from 
pasture  ;  not  the  "  cow-puncher  "  of  the  West. 

Line  17.  The  bloom.  It  is  evident  that  Thoreau  is  using  the  term 
huckleberry  here  to  include  the  marketable  blueberries.  The  true 
huckleberry,  which  is  seldom  sent  to  market,  has  no  bloom  in  its 
common  black  form. 

Page  193,  line  3.  Coenobites.  A  coenobite  is  a  member  of  any  reli 
gious  community ;  a  monk  living  in  a  monastery  as  opposed  to  a 
hermit  or  anchorite.  This  is  another  of  Thoreau 's  puns :  the  unsuc 
cessful  fisherman  could  see  no  bites. 

Page  195,  lines  6-4  from  bottom.  The  sea,  however,  is  said  to  be 
blue  one  day  and  green  another  without  any  percep 
tible  change  in  the  atmosphere.  The  reader  will  find  the 
color  of  the  sea  treated  rather  exhaustively  from  the  esthetic  point 
of  view  in  Mr.  John  C.  Van  Dyke's  The  Opal  Sea  (New  York,  1906). 
Page  197,  line  18.  Studies  of  a  Michael  Angelo.  Michael  An- 

gelo's  figures  often  show  an  overdevelopment  of  muscle. 
Page  198,  lines  6-12.  Making  another  hole  .  .  .  axe  out  again. 
An  instance  of  Thoreau 's  practical  ingenuity. 

Line  19.  Some  think  it  is  bottomless.  See  p.  315. 

Line  25.  Heart-leaves.  See  note  on  p.  140,  1.  12. 

Line  26.  Water-target.  The  water-shield  (Brasenia  peltata),  an 
aquatic  plant  with  floating  peltate  leaves  and  jelly-covered  stems. 
Page  199,  line  5.  Nine  Acre  Corner.  A  small  village  in  the  southern 
part  of  Concord. 


NOTES  395 

Line  17.  The  fall.  That  is,  the  fall  of  man. 

Line  22.  Who  knows,  etc.  A  mere  fancy  of  Thoreau's.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  believed  that  he  expected  to  be  taken  literally. 

Lines  23,  24.  Castalian  Fountain.  A  spring  on  the  slopes  of  Mt. 

Parnassus  in  Greece,  sacred  to  Apollo  and  the  Muses. 
Page  201,  line  13.   Flint's   Fond.   Also  called  Sandy  Pond ;  in  the 

town  of  Lincoln.  See  p.  216. 

Page  202,  line  16.  Tradition.  Thoreau  made  a  note  to  this  passage 
in  his  own  copy  of  Walden  as  follows :  "  This  is  told  of  Alexan 
der's  Lake,  Killingly,  Ct.,  by  Barber.  Vide  his  Connecticut  Histor 
ical  Collections." 

Line  2  from  bottom.  Settler  whom  I  have  mentioned.  On 
p.  152. 

Last  line.  Divining-rod.  A  forked  stick  of  witch-hazel  or  other 
tree  or  shrub,  with  which  certain  persons  were  supposed  to  discover 
the  presence  of  water  underground.  The  branch  was  grasped  by 
the  two  forks  and  carried  about  in  a  horizontal  position  until  the 
end  turned  down  and  pointed  towards  the  ground.  The  spot  where 
this  happened  was  the  place  where  the  well  must  be  dug. 
Page  203,  line  11.  The  paver.  The  glacier  which  during  the  glacial 
period  brought  the  boulders  and  drift  from  a  distance  and  depos 
ited  them  here. 

Line  12.  Saffron  Walden.  A  borough  in  the  County  of  Essex, 
about  forty  miles  from  London.  Thoreau  got  the  name  from  Eve 
lyn's  Diary,  as  we  learn  from  a  note  in  his  private  copy  of  Walden. 

I/me  5  from  bottom.  Boiling  Spring.  A  spring  about  half  a  mile 
from  Thoreau's  hut.  A  "  boiling  spring  "  in  New  England  is  one  in 
which  the  water  can  be  seen  coming  up  through  the  sandy  bottom, 
giving  the  sand  a  boiling  appearance.  The  term  has  no  reference 
to  the  temperature  of  the  water. 

Page  204,  line  16.  Chivins  or  roach.  The  fish  which  Thoreau  called 
chivin  is  the  common  American  chub,  now  known  to  science  as 
Semotilus  bullaris. 

Line  17.  A  very  few  breams.  "  Bream  "  is  a  name  for  the  fresh 
water  sunfish,  or  "  pumpkin-seed."  The  true  bream  is  a  European 
fish  not  found  in  this  country.  Thoreau  had  a  note  here  in  his  per 
sonal  copy  of  the  book,  reading,  "  Pomotis  obesus  (Nov.  26,  1858) ; 
one  trout  weighing  a  little  over  5  Ibs.  (vide  Nov.  14,  1857)."  The 
references  are  to  his  Journal,  where  we  find  that  he  discovered  some 
small "  breams  "  in  Walden  on  the  date  first  mentioned,  which  were 
pronounced  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Putnam  at  a  meeting  of  the  Boston  So 
ciety  of  Natural  History  to  be  Pomotis  (or  Bryttus)  obesus  ,^  also 
that  the  trout  was  speared  early  in  November,  1857,  by  a  man  who 
i  Now  called  EnneacanthvJt  obesus. 


396  NOTES 

also  "  saw  another  not  quite  so  large."  Thoreau  frequently  sent 
specimens  of  one  kind  or  another  to  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural 
History,  which  still  exhibits  in  its  museum  some  very  well  pre 
served  birds'-nests  contributed  by  him. 

Line  20.  The  only  eels  I  have  heard  of  here.  The  presence 
of  eels  in  a  pond  without  visible  outlet  is  particularly  interesting 
because  eels  spawn  only  in  the  sea,  and  are  dependent  upon  a  free 
passage  up  and  down  the  rivers  and  brooks. 

Page  205,  line  4.  Reticulatus.  Marked  like  a  net.  Esox  reticulatus  is 
the  scientific  name  of  the  pond  pickerel. 

Line  5.  Guttatus.  Spotted. 

Lines  13,  14.  Mussels.  Freshwater  clama  (Unio). 

Line  15.  Mud-turtle.  Thoreau's  name  for  the  snapping  turtle 
(Chelonura  serpentina). 

Line  20.  Hirundo  bicolor.  Now  called  Iridoprocne  bicolor,  and 
commonly  known  as  the  tree  swallow  in  the  vernacular. 

Line  21.  Totanus  macularius.  The  name  now  in  use  is  Actitis 
macularia.  The  bird  is  the  spotted  sandpiper,  the  common  tip-up 
or  teeter-tail  of  our  shores  and  inland  streams.  In  his  own  copy  of 
the  book  Thoreau  inserted  "  kingfishers  dart  away  from  its  coves," 
before  "  and  the  peetweets." 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Fair  Haven.  Fairhaven  Pond,  or  Fairhaven 
Bay,  is  a  widening  of  the  Sudbury  River  in  Concord,  about  three 
quarters  of  a  mile  from  Walden  Pond. 

Page  206,  line  8.  Perhaps  they  are  the  nests  of  the  chivin. 
Thoreau  was  right  in  this  conjecture,  though  he  apparently  never 
satisfied  himself  fully  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  these  stone-heaps. 
They  are  built  by  the  chivin,  or  chub  (Semotilus  bullaris).  An 
account  of  this  fish  and  its  nest-building  habits  will  be  found  in 
a  paper  on  The  Fishes  of  the  Connecticut  Lakes  and  Neighboring 
Waters,  by  W.  C.  Kendall  and  E.  L.  Goldsborough,  published  as 
Document  No.  633  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Fisheries. 
Page  207,  line  9.  When  you  invert  your  head.  This  method  of 
viewing  the  landscape  was  a  favorite  recreation  of  Thoreau's.  Every 
one  who  has  tried  it  knows  how  much  more  beautiful  and  pictur 
esque  the  landscape  appears  when  so  seen  than  when  viewed  in  the 
ordinary  way.  Several  theories  to  account  for  this  have  been  ad 
vanced,  and  Thoreau,  as  his  Journal  shows,  puzzled  over  the  phe 
nomenon  a  good  deal,  but  never  settled  the  matter  satisfactorily. 
Page  208,  line  5.  Boom.  Like  a  logger's  boom. 

Line  14.  ^ATater-bug.  Of  the  kind  commonly  called  lucky-bugs,  or 

whirligig  beetles. 

Page  210,  line  4.  We  shall,  perhaps,  look  down,  etc.  That  is, 
after  death. 


NOTES  397 

Page  211,  line  13.  One.  This  use  of  the  word,  for  "some  one,"  is 
common  with  Thoreau,  one  of  the  somewhat  antiquated  forms  of 
speech  which  are  so  characteristic  of  his  dignified  style.  Note  that 
this  is  not  the  impersonal  "  one." 

Page  212,  line  8.  He  did  not  know  -whose  it  was  ;  it  belonged 
to  the  pond.  One  of  those  concealed  indirect  quotations  of  which 
Thoreau  was  fond.  The  old  man  said,  "  I  don't  know  whose  it  was," 
and  then  added,  humorously,  "  It  belonged  to  the  pond." 

Page  213,  last  six  lines.  The  villagers,  etc.  This  plan  of  taking  water 
from  Walden  for  the  use  of  the  town  of  Concord  was  abandoned, 
and  Sandy  Pond  was  drawn  upon  for  the  purpose,  though  not  till 
some  years  after  Thoreau's  death. 

Page  214,  line  4.  Trojan  horse.  The  Trojan  horse  was  a  huge  wooden 
horse  filled  with  soldiers,  by  means  of  which  the  Greeks  finally  cap 
tured  Troy. 
Line  6.  Moore  of  Moore  Hall.  The  knight  who,  according  to 

a  satirical  old  ballad,  slew  the  Dragon  of  Wantley. 
Line  3  from  bottom.  In  whom  there  was  no  guile.  "  Jesus  saw 
Nathanael  coming  to  him,  and  saith  of  him,  Behold  an  Israelite 
indeed,  in  whom  is  no  guile  !  "  —  John,  i,  47. 

Page  215,  line  3,  4.  It  is  no  dream  of  mine, 
To  ornament  a  line. 

That  is,  the  Walden  he  is  telling  about  is  not  a  mere  dream,  used 
for  literary  purposes  only.  In  the  draft  of  Walden  printed  by  the 
Bibliophile  Society,  these  lines  are  preceded  by  — 

"  It  is  a  real  place,  — 
(Boston,  I  tell  it  to  your  face.") 

The  whole  poem  —  if  such  it  may  be  called  —  is  a  somewhat  mys 
tical  identification  of  himself  with  the  place  which  he  had  made  so 
peculiarly  his  own. 
Lines  7,   8  after  verse.  State  Street.  Then   as  now  the   "  Wall 

Street "  of  Boston,  the  street  of  the  bankers  and  stock-brokers. 
Page  216,  lines  3,  4.  Waste  its  sweetness  in  the  ocean  wave. 

"  Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

GRAY'S  "  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard." 

Line  10  from  bottom.  Pad.  A  lily-pad,  the  leaf  of  the  water-lily. 
Page  217,  line  2.  Curious  balls.  The  reader  who  is  interested  to 
learn  more  of  these  balls,  which  are  not  so  very  uncommon  on  sea- 
beaches  and  the  shores  of  ponds,  is  referred  to  two  papers  "  On 
Balls  of  Vegetable  Matter  from  Sandy  Shores,"  by  W.  F.  Ganong, 
in  the  botanical  journal  Rhodora  (Boston),  for  March,  1905,  and 
August,  1909. 


398  NOTES 

Line  17.  The  unclean  and  stupid  farmer.  No  particular  farmer 
is  referred  to,  of  course.  It  is  improbable  that  Thoreau  knew  what 
particular  Flint  had  given  his  name  to  the  pond.  He  is  simply 
venting  his  indignation  against  a  cheap  and  easy  way  of  naming 
the  features  of  the  landscape  which  is  too  common  in  America, 
though  now  less  so  than  formerly.  In  so  characterizing  a  stranger 
•who  doubtless  lived  and  died  many  years  before,  he  takes  perhaps 
a  rather  dangerous  liberty. 

Line  25.  So  it  is  not  named  for  me.  That  is,  so  far  as  I  am 

concerned,  it  shall  not  bear  the  name  of  such  a  man. 
Page  218,  lines  11,  12.  Privilege.  The  allusion  is  to  the  "mill  privi 
lege  "  or  "  water  privilege,"  granted  to  an  individual  by  the  com 
munity,  whereby  he  is  at  liberty  to  use  the  water  of  a  stream  to 
run  his  mill  or  for  other  private  purposes. 

Page  219,  line  3.  Icarian  Sea.  A  part  of  the  ^Egean,  where  Icarus 
was  fabled  to  have  fallen  to  his  death  on  flying  too  near  the  sun. 

Line  5  after  blank.  Lake  country.  The  Lake  Country  of  England, 
in  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland,  is  famous  for  its  literary  asso 
ciations. 

Line  6  after  blank.  "Water  privileges.  The  term  here  refers,  not 
to  the  right  to  use  water,  but  to  the  water  itself.  It  is  very  com 
monly  so  used  in  this  country. 

Page  220,  line  1.  Pitch  pine.  Mr.  Charles  Sprague  Sargent,  the  lead 
ing  authority  on  North  American  trees,  recognizes  only  one  form  of 
this  species. 
Page  221,  line  14.  White  lily.  The  white  water-lily. 

Lines  27,  28.  The  diamond  of  Kohinoor.  One  of  the  largest  and 
most  valuable  diamonds  in  the  world,  the  property  of  the  British 
Crown.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  found  in  India  before  the 
Christian  era,  and  it  has  had  an  eventful  history,  passing  through  the 
hands  of  many  Indian  princes  before  it  was  acquired  for  Queen  Vic 
toria  in  1850.  Koh-i-nur,  as  it  is  more  properly  written,  is  the  name 
of  the  stone  itself,  and  means  "  mountain  of  light."  It  is,  there 
fore,  not  entirely  accurate  to  speak  of  the  diamond  of  Kohinoor. 
Page  223,  line  7.  Valhalla.  The  abode  of  the  Norse  gods. 

Line  8.  Creeping  juniper.  It  is  not  the  true  creeping  juniper 
(Juniperus  horizontalis )  that  Thoreau  refers  to,  but  what  is  known 
as  the  common  juniper  (Juniperus  communis,  var.  depressa),  which 
grows  in  spreading  circular  patches  in  pasture -lands. 

Line  10.  "White  spruce.  For  "white  "  read  "black."  See  note  on 
p.  139.  Thoreau  changed  it  to  "  black"  in  his  own  personal  copy. 

Line  13.  Swamp-pink.  White  azalea. 

Line  14.  Dogwood.  The  flowering  dogwood  (Cornus  florida)  is 
doubtless  referred  to. 


NOTES  399 

Red  alder  berry.  The  red  berry  of  the  so-called  black  alder, 
or  winter-berry,  which  is  not  an  alder  at  all,  but  a  species  of  holly, 
Ilex  verticillata. 

Line  15.  Waxwork.  The  Roxbury  waxwork,  or  bittersweet. 

Line  16.  Wild  holly.  Nemopanthus  mucronata. 

Page  224,  line  7.  Pigeons.  The  wild  pigeons  were  caught  by  means 
of  nets  in  Concord  in  Thoreau's  day.  He  describes  a  "  pigeon- 
place  "  in  his  Journal  under  date  of  Sept.  12,  1851. 

Line  12.  Shingle  tree.  It  seems  probable  that  this  is  in  apposition 
with  the  word  "  pine,"  meaning  a  particularly  good  tree  to  make 
shingles  of.  There  seems  to  be  no  current  usage  that  applies  the 
term  "shingle  tree  "to  any  particular  species  of  tree  growing 
naturally  in  Concord.  A  correspondent  informs  the  editor  that 
shingles  were  formerly  made  of  red  pine  (Pinus  resinosa)  exten 
sively,  and  it  is  possible  that  Thoreau  referred  to  that  tree,  which 
he  found  growing  in  one  or  two  places  in  Concord,  and  to  which 
he  would  have  made  a  point  of  "  paying  a  visit."  The  "  taller  mast 
of  a  pine  "  he  speaks  of  here,  however,  must  have  been  a  white 
pine,  for  no  other  species  grew  tall  in  Concord. 

Lines  16,  17.  I  stood  in  the  very  abutment  of  a  rainbow's 
arch.  Under  date  of  Aug.  9,  1851,  Thoreau  wrote  in  his  Journal, 
"  It  was  a  splendid  sunset  .  .  .  ,  a  celestial  light  on  all  the  land, 
go  that  all  people  went  to  their  doors  and  windows  to  look  on  the, 
grass  and  leaves  and  buildings  and  the  sky,  and  it  was  equally 
glorious  in  whatever  quarter  you  looked ;  a  sort  of  f ulgor  as  of 
stereotyped  lightning  filled  the  air.  Of  which  this  is  my  solution. 
We  were  in  the  westernmost  edge  of  the  shower  at  the  moment 
the  sun  was  setting,  and  its  rays  shone  through  the  cloud  and  the 
falling  rain.  We  were,  in  fact,  in  a  rainbow,  and  it  was  here  its 
arch  rested  on  the  earth.  At  a  little  distance  we  should  have  seen 
all  the  colors."  This  is  doubtless  the  occasion  referred  to  here. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause  of  the  atmospheric  effect 
described,  it  can  hardly  have  been  literally  as  Thoreau  suggests, 
for  the  rainbow  is  always  centred  directly  opposite  the  spectator 
standing  with  his  back  to  the  sun,  and  it  is,  of  course,  impossible 
for  one  to  stand  in  the  abutment  of  the  arch.  The  rainbow  is  a 
reflection  from  the  raindrops,  not  a  palpable  arch  that  one  can 
approach  and  enter.  No  two  persons  see  precisely  the  same  bow. 
With  all  his  minute  and  painstaking  study  of  natural  phenomena, 
Thoreau  sometimes  jumped  at  conclusions  without  careful  con 
sideration.  It  was  poetic,  not  scientific,  truth  that  was  his  main 
pursuit,  and  since  he  combined  science  with  his  poetry  more  suc 
cessfully  than  most,  we  can  pardon  an  occasional  slip  of  this  kind. 

Line  21.  Like  a  dolphin.  The  dolphin  which  in  dying  assumes 


400  NOTES 

beautiful  colors  and  has  hence  acquired  a  poetic  celebrity  is  not 

the  true  dolphin,  but  a  fish  more  properly  called  a  coryphene,  any 

species  of  the  genus  Coryphcena. 
Line  28.  Benvenuto  Cellini.  A  famous  Italian  goldsmith  and 

sculptor  of  the  Renaissance  period,  whose  autobiography  is  one  of 

the  most  celebrated  books  of  the  kind. 
Page  225,  line  4  after  blank.    Baker  Farm.  Now  included  in  the 

estate  of  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams. 

A  poet.  William  Ellery  Channing,  the  second  of  the  name, 

Thoreau's  friend  before  referred  to.  The  poem  is  entitled  ' '  Baker 

Farm." 
Page  226,  verse.  "And  here  a  poet  builded,"  etc.  These  lines 

also  are  from  Channing's  "  Baker  Farm." 
Page  228,  line  16.  Irishman.  Thoreau  is  writing,  of  course,  about 

the  poor  class  of  Irish  immigrant  of  his  day,  a  time  when  the  Irish 

were  practically  the  only  foreigners  coming  to  Massachusetts. 
Page  229,   lines   12,  13.    "I  catch    shiners  with  fishworms, 

and  bait  the  perch  'with  them."  See  Thoreau's  comment  on 

p.  231.  Perch  —  yellow  perch,  that  is,  the  kind  referred  to  —  can, 

generally  be  caught  with  worms,  so  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  catch  i 

the  worthless  shiners  first. 

"  You  'd  better  go  now."  That  is,  go  fishing.  The  emphasis  »i 
*'        is  on  the  "  now." 

Line  23.  Was  seemingly  distilled.  It  took  so  long  to  prepare  it. 
Page  230,  lines  11,  12.  Remember  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of 

thy  youth.     Is  this  original  with  Thoreau  ?  If  not,  is  it  quoted 

exactly  ?  and  why  does  it  not  appear  in  quotation  marks  ? 
Verse.    "Landscape    where    the    richest    element,"    etc. 

Thoreau  is  still  quoting  Channing's  "  Baker  Farm." 
Page  231,  line  2  from  bottom.  W^ebbed.  People  living  on  wet  ground 

or  leading  a  more  or  less  aquatic  life  are  often  humorously  styled 

"  web-footed." 
Page  232,  line  10.  Venison.  Though   now  restricted   to  deer-meat, 

except  in  poetic  usage,  the  term  formerly  signified  the  flesh  of  any 

beast  of  the  chase. 
Lines  13-15.  An  instinct  toward  a  higher,  or,  as  it  is  named, 

spiritual  life,  and  another  toward   a  primitive  rank 

and    savage    one.     Each   of   these    instincts  was   stronger  in 

Thoreau  than  in  most  men,  and  the  combined  presence  of  the  two 

made  itself  more  manifest  in  him,  perhaps,  than  in  any  other 

writer  of  equal  eminence. 
Line  16.  I  love  the  wild.  "  Thoreau's  Wildness  "  is  the  subject 

of  a  short  essay  by  John  Burroughs  in  his  Literary  Values. 
Page  233,  lines  15-20.  They  mistake  who  assert,  etc.  This  is,  of 


NOTES  401 


course,  no  longer  true  of  American  sports.  Many  more  outdoor 
games  are  now  played  in  this  country  than  in  Thoreau's  day. 

Page  234,  lines  19,  20.  I  am  compelled  to  doubt  if  equally 
valuable  sports  are  ever  substituted  for  these.  He 
might  have  written  differently  if  he  had  lived  to  learn  the  modern 
sport  of  animal  photography. 

Line  25.  Mighty  hunters.  See  note  on  Nimrod,  p.  309,  line  1. 
Line  28.  Fishers  of  men.  See  Mark,  i,  17. 

Line  29.  Chaucer's  nun.  It  was  really  the  monk,  not  the  nun,  of 
Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales  that  gave  not  a  plucked  hen  for  the 
text  that  says  that  hunters  are  not  holy  men. 

Page  235,  lines  12,  13.  Phil-anthropic.  The  word  comes  from  the 
Greek  0iAeo>  (phileo),  to  love,  and  &v6p(airos  (anthropos),  man.  Tho- 
reau  italicizes  the  latter  part  so  as  to  suggest  that  his  love  for  living 
things  is  not  confined  to  man. 

Page  236,  lines  5,  6.  The  Governor  and  his  Council  .  .  .  went 
a-fishing  there.  This  doubtless  does  not  refer  to  any  actual 
event.  The  Governor  and  his  Council  are  used  figuratively. 

Page  237,  line  5  from  bottom.  Kirby  and  Spence.  An  Introduc 
tion  to  Entomology,  by  William  Kirby  and  William  Spence,  4  vols., 
London,  1815-1826. 

Page  239,  line  2  from  bottom.  Star-dust.  Star-dust  is  literally  cosmic 
dust,  which  is  supposed  to  fall  on  the  earth  from  outside  space  like 
the  meteorites.  It  has  been  found  on  the  snow  in  high  latitudes, 
but  it  is  probable  that  much  that  is  so  called  is  in  reality  volcanic 
dust  from  terrestrial  sources. 

Page  240,  line  10.  A  dish  of  tea.   A  cup  of  tea.  The  former  phrase, 

once  common,  is  now  seldom  heard. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Ved.  Veda.  See  note  on  p.  99,  line  7  from 
bottom. 

Page  241,  line  1.  Vedant.  The  Vedic  philosophy. 
Lines  9, 10.  Says  Thseng-tseu.  In  the  commentary  on  Confucius* 

book,  The  Great  Learning,  Chapter  vii. 
Line  16.  An  alderman  to  his  turtle.  See  note  on  "  aldermanic," 

p.  140,  line  11. 

Lines  16, 17.  Not  that  food  which  entereth  into  the  mouth 
defileth  a  man.  Quoted  (inexactly)  from  Matthew,  xv,  11. 

Page  242,  line  1.  The  harp  which  trembles  round  the  world. 
The  music  of  nature,  perhaps ;  or  it  may  be  that  the  music  of  the 
spheres  is  referred  to. 

Line  6  from  bottom.  Mencius.  A  Chinese  philosopher  of  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  B.  c.,  one  of  the  leading  teachers  of  Confu 
cianism.  The  name  is  Latinized  from  Meng-Tse. 

Page  243,  verse.  "  How  happy  'she  who  hath  due  place  aa- 


402  NOTES 

signed,"  etc.  From  Dr.  John  Donne's  Epistle  "  To  Sir  Edward 
Herbert,  since  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury." 

Page  245,  line  8.  Every  man  is  the  builder  of  a  temple,  called 
his  body.  "  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and  that 
the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you  ?  "  —  1  Corinthians,  iii,  16. 

Page  247,  line  1.  A  companion.  This  was  Thoreau's  intimate  friend 

William  Ellery  Channing,  the  poet. 

Line  5.  Hermit.  The  hermit  is  Thoreau,  of  course.  This  fashion  of 
writing  in  dialogue  form,  as  in  Izaak  Walton's  Compleat  Angler,  was 
once  common.  As  used  here  it  gives  an  antiquated  flavor  to  the 
text  in  keeping  with  Thoreau's  style. 

Line  14.  Bose.  A  sort  of  generic  name  for  the  farm  dog. 
Lines  15-21.  And  oh,  the  housekeeping,  etc.  Put  into  more 
colloquial  form  this  would  probably  read  somewhat  as  follows : 
"Who  wants  to  live  out  in  the  world,  where  housekeeping  with 
its  endless  routine  of  drudgery  is  necessary  ?  Better  not  keep  house 
at  all,  but  live  in  a  hollow  tree,  where  there  are  no  such  things  aa 
calls  and  dinner-parties  and  only  a  woodpecker  taps  at  the  door. 
Out  there  in  the  world  people  swarm  like  flies  in  the  sun.  They  are 
born  into  too  complex  an  existence  for  me.  I  do  very  well  with  my 
spring-water  and  my  loaf  of  brown  bread." 

Page  249,  line  11.   Confut-see.  The  Chinese  form  of  Confucius. 
Line  13.  Mem.  Abbreviation  for  "memorandum." 
Line  3  from  bottom.   Pilpay  &  Co.   Pilpay  and  the  other  fable- 
makers.  Pilpay,  or  Bidpai,  as  the  Arabic  word  is  more  correctly 
rendered,  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  a  Hindoo  philosopher  and 
the  author  of  the  fables  translated  into  Arabic  as  the  Fables  of 
Bidpai,  but  it  is  now  known  that  the  word  is  not  a  proper  name,  but 
comes  from  a  Sanskrit  word  meaning  "  master  of  knowledge,"  and 
that  the  fables  are  collected  from  very  ancient  sources,  —  Indian, 
Persian,  and  Arabic. 

Page  250,  line  3.  A  wild  native  kind.  In  his  own  copy  Thoreau 
inserts  as  a  note  here,  u  Mus  leucopus."  This  is  the  white-footed 
mouse,  or  deer  mouse,  now  called  by  the  mammalogists  Peromys- 
cus  leucopus  noveboracensis. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Tetrao  umbellus.  Now  called  Bonasa  um- 
bellus,  the  ruffed  grouse. 

Page  251,  line  2  from  bottom.  Sportsman.  No  "  true  sportsman,"  as 
the  phrase  is  used  nowadays,  would  shoot  grouse  in  the  breeding- 
season. 

Page  253,  line  6.    Turtle  doves.  Mourning  doves.    The  true  turtle 

dove  is  not  an  American  bird. 

Line  11  from  bottom.  Duellum.  Latin  for  "duel." 
Line  10  from  bottom.  Bellum.  Latin  for  "  war." 


NOTES  403 

Page  254,  lines  20,  21.  Whose  mother  had  charged  him  to 
return  with  his  shield  or  upon  it.  This  is  the  well-known 
charge  of  a  Spartan  woman  to  her  son  upon  his  departure  to  war. 
It  comes  down  to  us  through  Plutarch,  in  whose  "  Apothegms  of 
the  Laconian  Women,"  the  story  appears  thus  :  "  Another  [Spartan 
mother]  on  handing  her  boy  his  shield,  exhorting  him,  said,  '  My 
son,  either  this  or  upon  this.'  "  This  truly  Laconic  exhortation  is 
generally  extended  to  read  as  Thoreau  gives  it. 

Lines  22,  23.  Achilles  .  .  .  Patroclus.  Achilles,  the  Greek  hero 
of  the  Trojan  War,  sulked  in  his  tent  on  account  of  a  quarrel  with 
Agamemnon,  until  his  friend  Patroclus  was  killed  by  the  Trojans, 
when  he  sallied  out  to  avenge  him. 

Page  255,  line  13.  Austerlitz.  At  the  Battle  of  Austerlitz  in  Moravia, 
Dec.  2,  1805,  Napoleon  defeated  the  combined  forces  of  Russia  and 
Austria. 

Dresden.  This  was  another  of  Napoleon's  victories.  The  battle 
•was  fought  Aug.  26-27,  1813,  and  resulted  in  a  signal  defeat  for 
the  Allies,  —  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia. 

Two  killed,  etc.  The  allusions  are  to  the  Concord  Fight  of 
April  19,  1775. 

Page  256,  line  15.  Hotel  des  Invalides.  A  great  home  for  disabled 
soldiers  in  Paris.  It  contains  the  tomb  of  Napoleon. 

Line  22.  Kirby  and  Spence.  See  note  on  page  237,  line  5  from  • 
bottom.^ k.  1 

Line  24.  Huber.  Francois  Huber  (1750-1831),  a  Swiss  naturalist,  | 
noted  especially  for  his  researches  in  connection  with  bees. 

Line  25.  .2Eneas  Sylvius.  Enea  Silvio  Piccolomini  (1405-1464),  a 
learned  Italian  ecclesiastic  and  writer,  who  occupied  the  Papal 
throne  as  Pius  II  from  1458  until  his  death.  He  is  bjest  known  as 
a  writer  under  the  Latinized  form  of  his  name. 

Page  257,  lines  2,  3.  Olaus  Magnus.  A  Swedish  ecclesiastic  and  his 
torian,  author  of  a  History  of  the  Northern  Nations  which  was 
published  in  Latin  in  1555. 

Lines  9,  10.  Webster's  Fugitive-Slave  Bill.  Daniel  Webster 
was  an  influential  supporter  of  this  bill,  but  Senator  James  M. 
Mason  of  Virginia  was  its  author. 

Line  11  from  bottom.  Jerbilla.  Another,  and  probably  an  incorrect } 
form  of  Gerbillus,  the  name  of  a  genus  of  Old-World  jumping  mice, 
jerboas. 

Page  258,  line  8  from  bottom.  His  horse.  The  allusion  is  to  Pegasus, 
the  winged  horse  of  Greek  mythology,  who,  with  a  kick  of  his  hoof, 
caused  the  fountain  Hippocrene  to  spring  forth  on  Mt.  Helicon  in 
Boeotia.  Hippocrene  was  the  inspiring  well  of  the  Muses,  and  hence 
in  modern  poetry  Pegasus  is  called  the  horse  of  the  Muses  and  the 


404  NOTES 

poet's  steed.  Note  that  Thoreau  here  calls  himself  a  poet ;  and  such 
he  really  was,  though  most  of  his  poetry  was  written  in  prose. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Colymbus  glacialis.  The  loon  is  now  called 

by  ornithologists  Gavia  immer. 

Page  260,  last  line.  Swam  much  faster  there.  It  is  a  fact  that 
the  loon  and  probably  all  other  diving  birds  progress  more  rapidly 
under  water  than  on  the  surface.  Many  birds  fly  under  water,  but 
the  loon  uses  its  feet  alone  under  ordinary  circumstances,  according 
to  the  latest  writer  on  the  subject,  Dr.  Charles  W.  Townsend,  in 
The  Auk,  July,  1909. 

Page  261,  line  8  from  bottom.  Looning.  Thoreau  may  have  heard 
this  word  somewhere,  but  it  is  very  probable  that  he  coined  it  him 
self  from  a  fancy  that  the  loon  was  named  from  this  howling  note. 
The  word  "  loon,"  however,  as  applied  to  a  bird,  appears  to  come 
from  an  Old  Norse  word  through  the  Shetland  dialect,  which  gives 
the  name  "  loom  "  to  several  diving  birds.  "  Looning  "  has  now 
found  its  way  into  some  of  the  dictionaries,  apparently  solely  on  the 
strength  of  Thoreau' s  using  it.  He  used  it  again  in  The  Maine 
Woods. 

Page  262,  lines  13-19.  They  would  sometimes  circle  ...  to  a 
distant  part  which  was  left  free.  Of  what  service  to  the 
ducks  is  this  well-known  habit  of  circling  and  doubling  ? 

Line  19.  What  beside  safety  they  got.  The  black  duck,  the 
species  which  Thoreau  would  have  seen  most  commonly  at  Walden, 
feeds  at  night  and  often  rests  by  day  in  wide  and  deep  ponds 
where  it  can  get  no  food,  but  where  it  is  safe  from  its  enemies.  I 
Page  263,  line  3-11.  There,  too,  I  admired  .  .  .  lovers  of  Nature 
there.  Is  this  a  correctly  constructed  sentence  ? 

Line  11.  Butchers  rake  the  tongues  of  bison,  etc.  The 
"  butchers"  since  Thoreau's time  have  killed  the  last  of  the  bison, 
except  for  a  few  small  herds  which  are  being  protected  and  fostered 
in  the  Yellowstone  Park  and  elsewhere. 

Line  6  from  bottom.  They  now  sleep.  Note  the  play  upon  the 

word  "  sleep." 

Page  264,  line  4.  When  in  flower.  When  does  the  chestnut  tree 
bloom  ? 

Lines  10,  11.  A  good  substitute  for  bread.  Chestnuts  contain 
a  large  percentage  of  starch,  the  element  that  gives  bread  its  food 
value. 

Line  25.  The  totem  of  an  Indian  tribe.  InE.  B.  O'Callaghan'g 
Documents  relative  to  the  Colonial  History  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
a  French  document  of  1666  is  quoted  which  names  the  "  pomme-de- 
terre"  or  potato,  as  the  totem  of  one  of  the  Iroquois  tribes.  The 
figures,  taken  from  Indian  drawings,  might  equally  well  represent 


NOTES  405 

the  ground-nut,  which  we  learn  from  Lewis  Henry  Morgan's  League 
of  the  Iroquois  was  one  of  their  principal  foods.  It  seems  probable 
that  this  Iroquois  tribe  is  the  one  Thoreau  refers  to,  though  just 
where  he  obtained  his  information  it  is  not  easy  to  ascertain.  He 
accumulated  a  large  amount  of  material  for  a  book  about  the  In 
dians  which  his  early  death  prevented  him  from  writing. 
Page  265,  line  5.  Ceres  or  Minerva.  Ceres  was  the  Roman  goddess 
of  agriculture.  Minerva,  or  her  Greek  counterpart  Athene,  accord 
ing  to  the  myth,  gave  the  Greeks  the  olive  tree  and  the  plough. 
Lines  12,  13.  Ah,  many  a  tale  their  color  told.  Thoreau  evi 
dently  had  in  mind  the  lines  by  Thomas  Moore,  — 
"  Those  evening  bells  !  those  evening  bells  ! 
How  many  a  tale  their  music  tells,"  etc. 

Lines  4  and  3  from  bottom.  Avoiding  -winter  and  unspeak 
able  cold.  Probably  an  echo  of  the  line  in  the  Iliad  (book  iii, 
line  4),  where  the  cranes  are  spoken  of  as  avoiding  winter  and 
unspeakable  rain,     -f 
Page  266,  line  6  from  bottom.  Nebuchadnezzar.  King  of  Babylonia, 

B.  c.  604-561. 

Page  267,  line  6.  A  poet.  Channing  again. 
Page  268,  lines  15,  16.  Keeping-room.  Sitting-room.  The  term  is, 

or  was,  used  locally  in  England  and  in  New  England. 
Page  269,  line  5.  Saturn.  An  Italian  god,  identified  by  the  Romans 
with  the  Greek  Cronos,  who  was  the  chief  of  the  gods  till  his  son 
Zeus  deposed  him.  It  is,  of  course,  the  sill  of  the  house  that  is  so 
designated  here. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Put  out.  Note  the  play  on  the  words. 
Page  270,  line  10.  Keeping.  Why  is  the  word  italicized  ? 

Line  18.  Backing  out.  The  proper  method  of  leaving  the  presence 

of  royalty. 
Page  272,  line  2.  Unio  fluviatilis.    A  species  of  freshwater  clam. 

Many  species  of  Unio  are  found  in  our  ponds  and  streams. 
Page  275,  line  3.  Honk  or  quack.  Honk  is  the  note  of  the  wild 

goose ;  the  black  duck  quacks,  much  like  the  domestic  duck. 
Line  19.  Vulcan.  The  god  of  fire  in  the  classical  mythology. 
Lines  19,  20.  Terminus.  The  Roman  god  of  boundaries. 
Line  22.    Steal.  It  is  the  harmless  "stealing"  of  dead  wood  for 
which  the  owner  of  the  land  has  no  use  that  Thoreau  is  talking  of. 
Line  3  from  bottom.  The  Irish.  The  Fitchburg  Railroad  was  built 

largely  by  the  labor  of  Irish  immigrants. 

Page  276,  line  13.  Gilpin.  William  Gilpin  (1724-1804),  an  English 
clergyman,  author  of  theological  works  and  of  many  volumes  on 
the  picturesque  in  landscape  scenery  and  gardening,  including  a 
two- volume  book  on  "Forest  Scenery." 


406  NOTES 

Line  9  from  bottom.  Lord  Warden.  Under  date  of  April  12, 
1852,  Thoreau,  who  had  evidently  just  been  reading  Gilpin,  writes 
in  his  Journal :  "  In  the  New  Forest  in  Hampshire  they  had  a  chief 
officer  called  the  Lord  Warden  and  under  him  two  distinct  officers, 
one  to  preserve  the  venison  of  the  forest,  another  to  preserve  its 
vert ,  t.  e.  woods,  lawns,  etc.  Does  not  our  Walden  need  such  ?  The 
Lord  Warden  was  a  person  of  distinction,  as  the  Duke  of  Glouces 
ter." 

Last  two  lines.    Lucum  conlucare.    See  Cato,  De  Re  Rustica, 

139. 

Page  277,  line  11.  Michaux.  Francois  Andr<*  Michaux,  son  of  Andre" 
Michaux,  and  like  his  father  a  French  botanist  who  travelled  in 
America.  His  Histoire  des  Arbres  forestiers  de  FAmerique  septen- 
trionale  was  published  1810-13. 

Line  6  from  bottom.  New  Hollander.  See  note,  p.  370. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill.  See  Words 
worth's  poem  of  this  title. 

Page  278,  line  11.  "  Jump  "  it.  That  is,  shape  it  on  his  anvil.  The 
word  is  perhaps  not  quite  correctly  used  here.  See  the  dictionaries. 

Line  14.  Fat  pine.  Pine  that  is  full  of  pitch.  This  seems  to  be  an 

Americanism. 
Page  279,  line  9  of  verse.  Go  thou  my  incense.  Go  thou  as  my 

incense. 

Page  280,  line  8  from  bottom.  Cut  their  threads.  See  note  on 
Atropos,  p.  385. 

Line  6  from  bottom.  Cold  Fridays.  The  cold  day  alluded  to,  which 
Thoreau  mentions  several  times  in  his  Journal,  occurred  Jan.  19, 
1810.  Under  date  of  Jan.  11,  1857,  he  wrote  :  "Mother  remembers 
the  Cold  Friday  very  well.  She  lived  in  the  house  where  I  was  born. 
The  people  in  the  kitchen  .  .  .  drew  up  close  to  the  fire,  but  the 
dishes  which  the  Hardy  girl  was  washing  froze  as  fast  as  she 
washed  them,  close  to  the  fire."  In  the  entry  for  the  22d  of  the 
same  month,  he  wrote  :  "  I  asked  M.  [Mr.  George  Minott  of  Concord] 
about  the  Cold  Friday.  He  said,  '  It  was  plaguy  cold ;  it  stung  like 
a  wasp.'  He  remembers  seeing  them  toss  up  water  in  a  shoemaker's 
shop,  usually  a  very  warm  place,  and  when  it  struck  the  floor  it  was 
frozen  and  rattled  like  so  many  shot."  The  Great  Snow  alluded  to 
was  probably  that  of  1780.  See  note,  p.  385. 

Page  281,  verse.  "  Never,  bright  flame,  may  be  denied  to  me," 
etc.  These  lines  are  from  a  poem  entitled  "  The  Wood-Fire,"  by 
Ellen  H.  Hooper,  which  appeared  in  the  second  number  of  The 
Dial,  in  1840.  Mrs.  Hooper  was  a  daughter  of  William  Sturgis  and 
wife  of  Dr.  Robert  W.  Hooper,  a  Boston  physician. 
Page  283,  line  6.  On  a  foundation  of  logs.  The  corduroy  road,  ae 


NOTES  407 

it  is  called,  made  of  logs  laid  side  by  side  across  the  roadway,  is 
much  used  for  crossing  swampy  places  on  cart-paths  and  backwoods 
roads. 

Lines  13, 14.  Cato  Uticensis.  Marcus  Porcius  Cato,  great-grandson 
of  Cato  the  Censor  of  the  same  name,  called  Uticensis  from  the  fact 
of  his  having  died  at  Utica.  He  was  a  celebrated  Roman  philoso 
pher  and  patriot  of  the  first  century  B.  c. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Solidago  stricta.  Thoreau  afterwards  found 
himself  in  some  doubt  as  to  the  identification  of  the  particular 
species  of  goldenrod,  and  he  substituted  arguta  (with  a  question- 
mark)  for  stricta  on  his  personal  copy  of  the  book.  It  could  hardly 
have  been  stricta,  which  does  not  grow  in  New  England,  and  arguta, 
though  common  in  the  Massachusetts  woodland,  is  not  an  early 
species. 

Page  284,  lines  8,  9.  Squire  Cummings.  A  Concord  physician  of 

y    Scotch  parentage,  who  died  in  1788.   (Sanborn  in  the  Bibliophile 

A     edition  of  Walden.) 

1   Line  16.  Scipio  Africanus.  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio  Africanus,     1 
a  celebrated  Roman  general,  who  was  born  probably  in  B.  c.  237 

iand  died  about  B.  c.  183. 
Last  line.  Breed's  location.  Breed  was  a  barber  who  kept  a  shop 
in  Concord  together  with  a  tailor  named  Newell.  Their  sign  read,  — 
"  Tailoring  and  barbering  done  with  speed 
By  John  C.  Newell  &  John  C.  Breed." 

Journal,  vol.  ii,  p.  20. 

Page  285,  line  10  from  bottom.  Davenant's  "  Gondibert."  Sir 
William  D'Avenant,  or  Davenant,  was  an  English  poet  and  drama 
tist  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  whose  best-known  work  is  his  epic 
poem  "  Gondibert."  He  was  at  one  time  poet  laureate,  but  like 
many  another  occupant  of  that  position,  he  is  now  but  little 
read. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  An  uncle.  Charles  Dunbar,  a  brother  of  Tho- 
reau's  mother  and  a  very  eccentric  man,  about  whom  many  amusing 
anecdotes  are  related  in  the  Journal. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  Chalmers'  collection  of  English  poetry. 
Works  of  the  English  Poets  from  Chaucer  to  Cowper,  with  John 
son's  Lives,  and  additional  Lives,  by  Alexander  Chalmers,  a  Scot 
tish  editor  and  biographer  living  in  London,  published  in  1810  in 
twenty-one  volumes. 
Line  3  from  bottom.  Nervii.  A  powerful  and  warlike  people  of 

Belgic  Gaul  who  were  conquered  by  Caesar. 

Page  286,  line  12.  The  engine  bell  tinkled  behind.  This  was  be 
fore  the  days  of  steam  fire-engines,  of  course,  and  the  engine  was 
drawn  by  hand. 


in-    M 

ot-      l 

in 


408  NOTES 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Tub.  This  is  still  the  humorous  name  for  the 
hand  fire-engines,  which  are  now,  except  in  a  few  small  towns, 
used  only  in  athletic  contests  by  firemen's  associations. 

Page  287,  line  3  from  bottom.  Rider.  A  rail  of  a  stake-and-rider  fence. 

Page  288,  line  8  from  bottom.  Hugh  Quoil.  This  story  of  a  poor 
drunkard,  an  admirable  bit  of  human  nature  and  pathos,  is  told  at 
greater  length  in  the  Journal,  vol.  i,  pp.  414-418.  Aside  from  its 
intrinsic  interest,  it  will  also  serve  to  show  something  of  Thoreau's 
method  in  adapting  his  journal  entries  for  use  in  more  permanent 
form. 

"  I  had  one  neighbor  within  half  a  mile  for  a  short  time  when  I 
first  went  to  the  woods,  Hugh  Quoil,  an  Irishman  who  had  been  a 
soldier  at  Waterloo,  Colonel  Quoil,  as  he  was  called,  —  I  believe 
that  he  had  killed  a  colonel  and  ridden  off  his  horse,  —  who  lived 
from  hand  —  sometimes  to  mouth,  —  though  it  was  commonly  a 
glass  of  rum  that  the  hand  carried.  He  and  his  wife  awaited  their 
fate  together  in  an  old  ruin  in  Walden  woods.  What  life  he  got  — 
or  what  means  of  death  —  he  got  by  ditching. 

"  I  never  was  much  acquainted  with  Hugh  Quoil,  though  some 
times  I  met  him  in  the  path,  and  now  do  believe  that  a  solid  shank- 
bone,  and  skull  which  no  longer  aches,  lie  somewhere,  and  can  still 
be  produced,  which  once  with  garment  of  flesh  and  broadcloth  were 
called  and  hired  to  do  work  as  Hugh  Quoil.  He  was  a  man  of 
manners  and  gentlemanlike,  as  one  who  had  seen  the  world,  and 
was  capable  of  more  civil  speech  than  you  could  well  attend  to. 
At  a  distance  he  had  seemingly  a  ruddy  face  as  of  biting  January, 
but  nearer  at  hand  it  was  bright  carmine.  It  would  have  burnt 
your  finger  to  touch  his  cheek.  He  wore  a  straight- bodied  snuff  - 
colored  coat  which  had  long  been  familiar  with  him,  and  carried 
a  turf -knife  in  his  hand  —  instead  of  a  sword.  He  had  fought  on 
the  English  side  before,  but  he  fought  on  the  Napoleon  side  now. 
Napoleon  went  to  St.  Helena  ;  Hugh  Quoil  came  to  Walden  Pond. 
I  heard  that  he  used  to  tell  travellers  who  inquired  about  myself 

that and  Thoreau  owned  the  farm  together,  but  Thoreau 

kved  on  the  place  and  carried  it  on. 

/  "  He  was  thirstier  than  I,  and  drank  more,  probably,  but  not  out 
of  the  pond.  That  was  never  the  lower  for  him.  Perhaps  I  ate 
more  than  he.  The  last  time  I  met  him,  the  only  time  I  spoke  with 
him,  was  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  the  highway,  as  I  was  crossing 
to  the  spring  one  summer  afternoon,  the  pond  water  being  too  warm 
for  me.  I  was  crossing  the  road  with  a  pail  in  my  handr  when  Quoil 
came  down  the  hill,  wearing  his  snuff-colored  coat,  as  if  it  were 
winter,  and  shaking  with  delirium  tremens.  I  hailed  him  and  told 
him  that  my  errand  was  to  get  water  at  a  spring  close  by,  only  at 


NOTES  409 

the  foot  of  the  hill  over  the  fence.  He  answered,  with  stuttering 
and  parched  lips,  bloodshot  eye,  and  staggering  gesture,  he  'd  like 
to  see  it.  '  Follow  me  there,  then.'  But  I  had  got  my  pail  full  and 
back  before  he  scaled  the  fence.  And  he,  drawing  his  coat  about 
him,  to  warm  him,  or  to  cool  him,  answered  in  delirium-tremens 
hydrophobia  dialect,  which  is  not  easy  to  be  written  here,  he  'd 
heard  of  it,  but  had  never  seen  it  ;  and  so  shivered  his  way  along  to 
town,  —  to  liquor  and  to  oblivion. 

"  On  Sundays,  brother  Irishmen  and  others,  who  had  gone  far 
astray  from  steady  habits  and  the  village,  crossed  my  bean-field 
with  empty  jugs  toward  Quoil's.  But  what  for  ?  Did  they  sell  rum 
there?  I  asked.  'Respectable  people  they,'  'Know  no  harm  of 
them,'  '  Never  heard  that  they  drank  too  much,'  was  the  answer 
of  all  wayfarers.  They  went  by  sober,  stealthy,  silent,  skulking 
(no  harm  to  get  elm  bark  Sundays)  ;  returned  loquacious,  sociable, 
having  long  intended  to  call  on  you.  __  \ 

h~dne~atfefhoon  Hngh  Quoil,  feeling  better,  perchance, 


with  snuff  -colored  coat,  as  usual,  paced  solitary  and  soldier-like, 
thinking  of  Waterloo,  along  the  woodland  road  to  the  foot  of  the 
hill  by  the  spring  ;  and  there  the  Fates  met  him,  and  threw  him 
down  in  his  snuff-colored  coat  on  the  gravel,  and  got  ready  to  cut 
his  thread  ;  but  not  till  travellers  passed,  who  would  raise  him 
up,  get  him  perpendicular,  then  settle,  settle  quick  ;  but  legs,  what 
are  they  ?  '  Lay  me  down,'  says  Hugh  hoarsely.  '  House  locked 
up  —  key  —  in  pocket  —  wife  in  town.'  And  the  Fates  cut,  and 
there  he  lay  by  the  wayside,  five  feet  ten,  and  looking  taller  than 
in  life. 

"  He  has  gone  away;  his  house  here  '  all  tore  to  pieces.'  What 
kind  of  fighting  or  ditching  work  he  finds  to  do  now,  how  it  fares 
with  him,  whether  his  thirst  is  quenched,  whether  there  is  still  some 
semblance  of  that  carmine  cheek,  struggles  still  with  some  liquid 
demon  —  perchance  on  more  equal  terms  —  till  he  swallow  him 
completely,  I  cannot  by  any  means  learn.  What  his  salutation  is 
now,  what  his  January-morning  face,  what  he  thinks  of  Waterloo, 
what  start  he  has  gained  or  lost,  what  work  still  for  the  ditcher 
and  forester  and  soldier  now,  there  is  no  evidence.  He  was  here, 
the  likes  of  him,  for  a  season,  standing  light  in  his  shoes  like  a 
faded  gentleman,  with  gesture  almost  learned  in  drawing-rooms  ; 
wore  clothes,  hat,  shoes,  cut  ditches,  felled  wood,  did  farm  work 
for  various  people,  kindled  fires,  worked  enough,  ate  enough,  drank 
too  much.  He  was  one  of  those  unnamed,  countless  sects  of  philoso 
phers  who  founded  no  school. 

"  Now  that  he  was  gone,  and  his  wife  was  gone  too,  —  for  she 
could  not  support  the  solitude,  —  before  it  was  too  late  and  the 


410  NOTES 

house  was  torn  down,  I  went  over  to  make  a  call.  Now  that  Irish 
men  with  jugs  avuidod  the  old  house}  I  visited  it,  —  an  4  unlucky 
castle  now,'  said  they.j  There  lay  his  old  clothes  curled  up  by  habit, 
as  if  it  were  himself,  upon  his  raised  plank  bed.  His  pipe  lay 
broken  on  the  hearth ;  and  scattered  about  were  soiled  cards  — 
king1  of  diamonds,  hearts,  spades  —  on  the  floor.  One  black  chicken, 
which  they  could  not  catch,  still  went  to  roost  in  the  next  apart 
ment,  stepping  silent  over  the  floor,  frightened  by  the  sound  of 
its  own  wings,  black  as  night  and  as  silent,  too,  not  even  croaking ; 
awaiting  Reynard,  its  god  actually  dead.  There  was  the  dim  outline 
of  a  garden  which  had  been  planted,  but  had  never  received  itg 
first  hoeing,  now  overrun  with  weeds,  with  burs  and  cockles,  which 
stick  to  your  clothes ;  as  if  in  the  spring  he  had  contemplated  a 
harvest  of  corn  and  beans  before  that  strange  trembling  of  the  limbs 
overtook  him/  Skin  of  woodchuck  fresh-stretched,  never  to  be 
cured,  met  once  in  bean-field  by  the  Waterloo  man  with  uplifted 
hoe ;  no  cap,  no  mittens  wanted.  Pipe  on  hearth  no  more  to  be 
lighted,  best  buried  with  him." 

Page  289,  lines  11,  12.  A  bowl  broken  at  the  fountain.  "  Or  ever 
the  silver  cord  be  loosed,  or  the  golden  bowl  be  broken,  or  the 
pitcher  be  broken  at  the  fountain,  or  the  wheel  broken  at  the  cis 
tern."  —  Ecclesiastes,  xii,  6. 

Page  290,  line  12.  "  Fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute." 
"  Fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute."  —  Milton's  Para 
dise  Lost,  book  ii,  line  560. 

Line  15.  "  Cato  and  Brister  pulled  wool."  There  is,  perhaps, 
a  double,  or  even  a  triple,  meaning  here  in  Thoreau's  mind. 

Page  291,  line  13.  Blossom  like  the  rose.  See  Isaiah  xxxv,  1. 

Page  292,  lines  7  and  6  from  bottom.  Filled  with  heaven's  own 
blue.  The  reflection  of  the  blue  sky  from  the  snow  where  it  lies  in 
shadow,  as  in  the  deep  footprints.  This  reflection  of  the  blue  sky 
on  shadowed  ground  is  universal  in  summer  and  winter,  but  is  sel 
dom  noticed,  except  by  persons  who  have  trained  themselves  to  see 
it.  It  is  more  observable  on  the  white  snow  than  elsewhere,  but  it 
is  to  be  seen  everywhere  out  of  doors  in  fair  weather.  —  But  we 
must  not  lose  sight  of  the  poetry  of  Thoreau's  thought  in  consider 
ing  the  natural  phenomenon. 

Page  293,  line  8.  Strix  nebulosa.  Now  known  as  Strix  varia. 
Line  20.  Peninsular  relation.  If  he  had  closed  his  eyes  entirely, 

he  would,  to  follow  up  the  metaphor,  have  islanded  himself. 
Line  4  from  bottom.  I  could  not  hear  the  slightest  sound. 
What  makes  an  owl's  flight  noiseless ;  and  of  what  service  is  such 
a  flight  to  the  bird  ? 

Page  294,  line  2.  The  dawning  of  his  day.  That  is,  the  coming  on 
of  night. 


NOTES  411 

Line  7.  Heathen  as  I  was.  Thoreau  did  not  profess  to  be  a 
Christian  in  religion,  though  he  was  an  intensely  religious  man. 
The  allusion  here  is,  of  course,  to  a  well-known  saying  of  Christ's. 

Line  17.  Meadow  mouse.  Thoreau  corrected  this  to  "deer 
mouse  "  in  his  personal  copy. 

Line  7  from  bottom.  A  woodchopper.  Doubtless  the  French- 
Canadian,  Therien,  of  whom  we  have  heard  before. 

Line  3  from  bottom.  A  long-headed  farmer.  Mr.  Sanborn  in  the 
Bibliophile  Walden  tells  us  that  this  was  Thoreau's  friend  Edmund 
Hosmer  of  Concord. 

Page  295,  lines  7,  8.  We  tried  our  teeth  on  many  a  nut  which 
wise  squirrels  have  long  since  abandoned.  That  is,  they 
tried  to  solve  some  of  the  world's  unsolvable  problems. 

Line  11.  A  poet.  Channing. 

Line  17.  Boisterous  mirth.  Thoreau  was  no  such  stiff  and  un 
bending  Stoic  philosopher  as  he  is  sometimes  imagined. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  Another  welcome  visitor.  Amos  Bronson 
Alcott  (1799-1888).  His  early  efforts  asapeddlerof  Yankee  goods 
in  the  South  were  unsuccessful  commercially,  but  he  afterwards 
became  widely  known  as  a  philosopher  and  lecturer.  His  daughter, 
Louisa  M.  Alcott,  is  better  known  to  young  people.  She  went  to 
school  to  Thoreau. 

page  290,  line  4.  Disgracing  man.  Putting  man  to  shame.  An 
obsolete  usage  of  the  word. 

Line  2  after  verse.  Old  Mortality.  The  character  who  gives  the 
name  to  one  of  Scott's  novels.  He  was  an  old  man  who  travelled 
over  Scotland  cleaning  and  making  plain  the  inscriptions  on  old 
gravestones. 

Lines  6  and  5  from  bottom.  Entertainment  for  man,  etc.  On 
the  signs  of  inns  were  formerly  placed  the  words  "  Entertainment 
for  man  and  beast." 

Page  297,  line  2.  Ingenuus.  Freeborn ;  hence,  worthy  of  a  freeman, 
noble,  upright,  candid,  ingenuous. 

Line  10.  Pumpkin  pine.  "  When  growing  densely  in  deep  and  damp 
old  forests,  with  only  a  few  branches  near  the  top,  the  slowly- 
grown  wood  [of  the  white  pine]  is  perfectly  clear  and  soft,  destitute 
of  resin,  and  almost  without  sap-wood,  and  has  a  yellowish  color, 
like  the  flesh  of  the  pumpkin.  It  is  then  called  pumpkin  pine.  .  .  . 
[The  name  is]  little  used  except  in  Maine,  and  by  persons  who  im 
port  wood  from  that  State."  —  George  B.  Emerson,  1846. 

Line  15.  Flocks.  In  the  sense  of  flocks  of  wool,  not  of  flocks  of 
sheep. 

Lines  20,  21.  A  New  England  Night's  Entertainment.  Al 
luding,  of  course,  to  The  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments, 


412  NOTES 

Line  22.  The  old  settler.  See  p.  152. 

Line  2  from  bottom.  One  other.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
Page  298,  line  4.  Visitor  who  never  comes.  The  angel  of  God, 
perhaps.  Or,  perhaps,  rather,  the  ideal  man,  the  Friend  for  whom 
Thoreau  was  always  looking1,  but  never  found  because  there  never 
was,  nor  could  be,  such  a  friend.  This  is  one  of  those  vague  and 
mystical  thoughts  which  we  find  frequently  in  Thoreau's  writings, 
which  we  can  understand  in  some  measure  without  being  able  to 
explain. 

The  Vishnu  Purana.  The  best-known  of  the  Puranas,  or  later 
religious  writings  of  the  Hindoos,  manuals  of  sectarian  Brah- 
manisra. 

Page  300,  line  3.  Moose-yard.  Moose  and  deer  are  well-known  to 
"  yard  "  in  winter  when  the  snow  is  deep.  They  congregate  in  some 
secluded  and  remote  place  in  the  woods  and  by  trampling  the  snow 
keep  a  yard  clear  where  they  can  get  about  comfortably  and  feed. 

Line  10.  Lingua  vernacula.  Language  of  the  common  people. 

Line  8  from  bottom.  Cat  owl.  The  great  horned  owl.  A  careful 
study  of  all  Thoreau's  references  to  owls  in  his  Journal  leads  to 
the  conviction  that  the  hooting  owl  spoken  of  above  and  on  pages 
138  and  139  was  also  of  this  species. 

Last  two  lines.  Alarming  the  citadel.  When  the  Gauls  took 
Rome  in  B.  c.  390,  the  citadel,  which  still  held  out,  was  saved  by 
the  cackling  of  the  sacred   geese  in  the  temple  of  Juno,  which 
warned  the  garrison  of  an  assault. 
Page  301,  line  7.  The  whooping  of  the  ice.  See  pp.  332,  333. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Sciurus  Hudsonius.  Now  called  Sciurus 

hudsonicus. 

Page  302,  line  9  from  bottom.  "Winding  up  his  clock.  A  familiar 
note  of  the  red  squirrel  resembles  the  sound  made  by  the  winding 
of  a  clock. 

Page  305,  line  8  from  bottom.  Actaeon.  A  hunter  who,  according  to 
the  Greek  myth,  surprised  Artemis  (Diana)  at  her  bath,  and  was 
changed  by  her  into  a  stag  and  then  attacked  and  killed  by  his 
own  dogs. 

Page  306,  line  10.  Hound.  Thoreau,  here  and  on  page  307,  appar 
ently  uses  the  word  as  synonymous  with  "bay,"  just  as  we  have 
found  him  coining  the  word  "  looning  "  to  signify  the  note  of  the 
loon,  and  probably  for  the  same  reason ;  but  he  is  not  warranted 
in  doing  so  by  the  etymology  of  the  word,  which  originally  meant 
any  kind  of  dog  and  was  spelled  "  hund." 

Line  15.  A  man  came  to  my  hut  from  Lexington.  The 
conversation  is  given  in  detail  in  the  Journal,  vol.  i,  pp.  398,  399. 
" '  Have  you  seen  my  hound,  sir  ?  I  want  to  know  —  what !  a  law- 


NOTES  413 

yer's  office  ?  law  books  ?  —  if  you  've  seen  anything  of  a  hound 
about  here.  Why,  what  do  you  do  here  ? '  '  I  live  here.  No,  I 
have  n't.'  '  Have  n't  you  heard  one  in  the  woods  anywhere  ?  '  '  Oh, 
yes,  I  heard  one  this  evening.'  '  What  do  you  do  here  ? '  '  But  he 
was  some  way  off.'  '  Which  side  did  he  seem  to  be  ?  '  '  Well,  I 
should  think  he  was  the  other  side  of  the  pond.'  '  This  is  a  large 
dog ;  makes  a  large  track.  He  's  been  out  hunting  from  Lexington 
for  a  week.  How  long  have  you  lived  here  ?  '  '  Oh,  about  a  year.' 
'  Somebody  said  there  was  a  man  up  here  had  a  camp  in  the  woods 
somewhere,  and  he  'd  got  him.'  '  Well,  I  don't  know  of  anybody. 
There  's  Britton's  camp  over  on  the  other  road.  It  may  be  there.' 
'Isn't  there  anybody  in  these  woods  ?  '  '  Yes,  they  are  chopping 
right  up  here  behind  me.'  '  How  far  is  it  ? '  '  Only  a  few  steps. 
Hark  a  moment.  There,  don't  you  hear  the  sound  of  their 
axes  ? ' " 

Line  6  from  bottom.  A  cruise.  The  word  is  habitually  used  by 
hunters,  apparently  without  thought  of  any  nautical  associa 
tions. 

Page  308,  line  14  from  bottom.  Wast  Book.  Waste-book,  or  day 
book.  The  cover  of  this  old  account-book  which  Thoreau  examined 
was  inscribed :  — 

' '  Mr.  Ephraim  Jones 

His  Wast  Book 

Anno  Domini 

1742." 

In  the  Journal,  vol.  vi,pp.  77-80,  88,  94-96,  101,  Thoreau  tells 
of  some  of  the  interesting  and  amusing  things  he  found  in  this 
book  and  two  ledgers  which  he  afterwards  looked  over. 

Line  12  from  bottom.  Representative.  In  the  General  Court, 
the  legislature  of  Massachusetts. 

Line  11  from  bottom.  0 — 2 — 3.  These  figures  and  those  a  few  lines 
down  stand  for  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  of  course. 

Line  9  from  bottom.  Catt.  Thoreau  had  misgivings  as  to  this  after 
printing  it,  and  he  wrote  in  the  margin  of  his  own  copy,  "  Can  it 
be  calf?  Vide  small  ledger,  near  beginning."  There  seems  to  be 
no  inherent  reason  for  doubting  that  it  might  have  been  a  wild 
cat's  skin,  however.  Wildcats  have  been  killed  in  eastern  Massa 
chusetts,  even  in  recent  years. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  The  last  deer.  Under  the  protection  that  has 

been  afforded  them  deer  have  recently  increased  very  considerably 

all  over  New  England,  and  they  are  now  not  very  rare  in  the 

neighborhood  of  Concord. 

Page  309,  line  1.  Nimrod.  According  to  Genesis,  Nimrod  was  "  a 


414  NOTES 

mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord,"  and  this  seems  to  be  all  that  is 
known  of  him.  Few  men  are  so  celebrated  on  so  slight  a  foundation 
of  known  fact. 

Line  9  from  bottom.  The  hares.  The  common  gray  rabbit,  now 
known  to  naturalists  as  Lepus  fioridanus  transitionalis,  but  called 
by  Dr.  Ebenezer  Emmons,  with  whose  Report  on  the  Quadrupeds 
of  Massachusetts,  published  in  1840,  Thoreau  was  familiar,  Lepus 
Americanus.  The  true  L.  americanus l  is  the  larger  varying  hare, 
which  turns  white  in  winter.  The  subspecies  L.  americanus  vir- 
ginianus  is,  or  was,  found  in  Concord,  and  Thoreau  knew  it  by 
hearsay  under  the  name  of  the  white  rabbit.  He  saw  its  tracks 
occasionally  in  the  snow,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  he  ever  saw 
the  animal  itself  alive. 

Page  310,  lines  9, 10.  The  breed  of  nobler  bloods.  "  Rome,  thou 
hast  lost  the  breed  of  noble  bloods!"  —  Shakespeare's  Julius 
Ccesar,  Act  I,  Sc.  ii,  line  151. 

Line  15.  Venison.  See  note  on  p.  232. 

Line  18.  Some  think.  Lucius  ^lius,  according  to  Varro,  thought 

the  word  lepus  was  so  derived,  on  account  of  the  hare's  swiftness. 

Varro  himself  thought  it  came  from  the  Greek.  (De  Re  Rustica, 

3,  12.) 

Page  313,  line  4.  Marmots.  That  is,  the  woodchucks,  a  species  of 

marmot. 

Page  315,  line  4.  "Whose  fame  is  trumpeted.  This  is  to  be  taken 
literally.  Formerly  the  travelling  vender  of  fish  in  New  England 
villages  blew  a  horn  from  time  to  time  as  he  drove  through  the 
streets.  The  "  fish-horn  "  still  survives,  though  it  is  no  longer  used 
by  the  fish-man. 

Line  11.  Waldenses.  The  Waldenses,  or  Waldensians,  upon  whose 
name  Thoreau  is  playing  here,  are  a  small  religious  sect  chiefly 
located  in  the  north  of  Italy,  which  was  started  by  Peter  Waldo  of 
Lyons,  France,  in  1170,  as  a  reform  movement  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Thoreau  is  also  thinking  of  the  Latin  termina 
tion  -enses  signifying  "  inhabitants  of." 

Line  3  from  bottom.  Two  such  Bottomless  Ponds.  "Yester 
day,  September  14,  [1850,]  walked  to  White  Pond  in  Stow,  on  the 
Marlborough  road,  having  passed  one  pond  called  sometimes  Pratt's 
Pond,  sometimes  Bottomless  Pond,  in  Sudbury.  Saw  afterward 
another  pond  beyond  Willis's  also  called  Bottomless  Pond,  in  a 
thick  swamp.  To  name  two  ponds  bottomless  when  both  have  a 
bottom  !  Verily  men  choose  darkness  rather  than  light."  —  Jour 
nal,  vol.  ii,  p.  G8. 

1  In  modern  usage  the  specific  names  of  animals  are  never  capitalized,  even  when 
they  are  proper  nouns  in  the  genitive  case  or  proper  adjectives. 


NOTES  415 

Page  316,  line  9.  A  "fifty -six."  A  fifty-six  pound  weight,  half  the 
old-fashioned  hundredweight  of  one  hundred  and  twelve  pounds. 

Page  317,  line  8.  William  Gilpin.  See  note  on  p.  276.  The  quota 
tion  is  from  his  Observations  on  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  The 
verse  he  quotes  from  Paradise  Lost,  book  vii,  lines  288-290. 

Page  323,  line  12.  An  undulation  in  the  crust  of  the  earth. 
This  reminds  one  of  the  modern  seismographs.  The  instrument  in 
the  museum  of  Harvard  University  detects  vibrations  which  are 
supposed  to  be  caused  by  the  beat  of  the  surf  upon  the  shore  about 
seven  miles  away. 

Page  324,  lines  16,  17  after  blank.  To  saw  pit-fashion.  Logs  are 
sometimes  sawed  in  this  way,  one  sawyer  standing  in  a  pit  below 
the  log  and  another  above. 

Last  line.  Winter  rye.  As  Thoreau  very  well  knew,  this  crop  is 
sown  in  the  autumn.  It  is  called  winter  rye  because  it  lives  through 
the  winter  to  grow  and  ripen  in  the  following  spring  and  summer. 

Page  325,  line  7  from  bottom.  Tartarus.  The  lowest  of  the  lower 
worlds,  according  to  the  mythology  of  the  Iliad.  Later  it  was 
used  as  synonymous  with  Hades. 

Page  328,  line  12  from  bottom.  Thus  it  appears,  etc.  This  para 
graph  tells  what  might  have  happened  to  the  Walden  ice. 
Last  line,  page  329,  line  1.  Brahma  and  Vishnu  and  Indra. 
Three  great  gods  of  the  Hindoo  mythology. 

Page  329,  lines  7,  8.  Atlantis.  A  mythical  island  in  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  an  account  of  which  is  given  in  Plato's  dialogue  "  Timseus." 
Line  8.  The  Hesperides.  The  Hesperides,  according  to  Greek 
mythology,  were  three  sisters  (or  four,  or  seven,  for  the  accounts 
vary),  whose  parentage  is  variously  given.  The  islands  of  their 
abode  were  generally  located  in  the  extreme  west. 

The  periplus  of  Hanno.  See  note  on  Hanno,  p.  372.  Periplus, 
or  periplous,  is  a  Greek  word  meaning  sailing  round.  Hanno's 
periplus  was  his  voyage  along  the  west  coast  of  Africa.  His  ac 
count  of  it  is  still  extant  in  a  Greek  translation,  which  has  been 
translated  into  English. 

Line  9,  Ternate  and  Tidore.  Two  of  the  Spice  Islands  of  the 
Melanesian  Archipelago.  Thoreau 's  ship  takes  a  somewhat  irregu 
lar  course,  —  makes  a  genuine  periplus,  in  fact. 

Page  333,  lines  6,  7.  Fishes  and  muskrats  .  .  .  stunned  by 
a  blow  on  it.  Fishes,  such  as  pickerel,  seen  through  the  ice  in 
shallow  water  may  be  stunned  by  a  sharp  blow  on  the  ice  above 
them  and  so  captured. 

Page  335,  line  10.  Field  of  ice.  This  is  the  technical  term  in  the 
Arctic  regions  for  a  large  sheet  of  ice. 

Page  337,  line  5.  Acanthus.  A  European  plaat,  the  conventionalized 


410  NOTES 

leaf  of  which  was  much  used  in  classical  architecture,  as  on  the 
capital  of  the  Corinthian  column. 

Chiccory.  The  leaf  of  this  well-known  and  beautiful  plant  of 
the  roadsides  and  waste  places  was  imitated  in  the  Gothic  orna 
mentation  of  the  Fifteenth  Century. 

Ivy.  The  conventionalized  ivy  leaf  is  an  ancient  architectural 
ornament,  being-  found  in  Etruscan  and  Grseco-Roman  design. 
Line  6.  Vine.  The  vine  came  into  use  as  an  architectural  ornament 
in  the  early  Christian  and  Byzantine  period. 

Page  338,  lines  13-21.  Lobe,  etc.  These  lines  illustrate  Thoreau's 

fondness  for  etymological  speculations. 

Line  14.  Labor.  The  verb  labor,  not  to  be  confused  with  the  noun 
labor  (English  "labor"),  which  seems  to  come  from  a  different 
root. 

Page  339,  Hue  4  from  bottom.  Palm.  Our  word  "  palm  "  in  both  its 
senses  comes  from  the  Latin  palma,  which  also  was  used  for  the 
palm  tree  as  well  as  for  the  palm  of  the  hand.  The  original  mean 
ing  was  the  latter,  however,  the  word  coming  from  the  Greek 
ira\d]unf]  (palame),  which  was  used  only  in  this  original  sense,  the 
Greeks  employing  a  different  word  for  the  tree. 
Line  3  from  bottom.  Umbilicaria.  A  genus  of  lichens. 

Page  340,  line  13.  Champollion.  Jean  FranQois  Champollion,  a 
famous  French  archaeologist,  who  by  means  of  the  celebrated  Ro- 
setta  Stone  discovered  the  key  to  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics, 
announcing  his  discovery  in  1822. 

Page  341,  line  5.  A  living  earth.  The  geologists  teach  us  that  the 
earth  is  constantly  undergoing  change  and  growth,  that  geological 
processes  are  not  things  of  the  past,  but  are  still  going  on. 
Lines  16,  17.  Seeks  the  sea  with  music  or  migrates  to 
Other  climes  in  clouds.  Note  the  alliteration. 

Page  342,  line  1.  Widowed  Nature.  Why  is  nature  so  character 
ized  ? 

Page  343,  line  2.  The  sinking  sound  of  melting  snow.  We  have 
all  heard  this  sound  in  the  spring  woods,  but  how  many  of  us 
have  ever  even  thought  of  it  ?  and  who  else  has  ever  written  about 
it  ?  The  reader  of  Walden  and  of  Thoreau's  other  books  and  Jour 
nals  must  be  impressed  with  the  universality  of  his  observation  of 
nature.  He  saw  and  heard  so  many  various  things  that  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  he  failed  to  attain  the  specialist's  knowledge 
of  any  one  branch  of  natural  history.  Note  the  alliteration  in  this 
sentence. 

Line  4,  5.  Et  primitus  oritur  herba  imbribus  primoribus 
evocata.  "  And  for  the  first  time  the  grass  springs  up,  called 
forth  by  the  early  rains.  "  —  Varro,  De  Ee  Rustica,  2,  2,  14. 


NOTES  417 

Lines  8  and  7  from  bottom.  Olit,  olit,  olit,  etc.  Is  this  a  good 
rendering  of  the  song  sparrow's  song  ? 

Page  344,  line  5.  Leuciscus.  Leuciscus  is  a  genus  of  freshwater  fishes 
which  in  Thoreau's  time  was  considered  to  include  those  commonly 
known  as  the  roach,  the  dace,  the  shiner,  and  the  minnow.  No 
fishes  belonging  to  this  genus  as  at  present  constituted  are  known 
to  occur  in  Massachusetts. 
Line  7.  Was  dead  and  is  alive  again.  In  what  connection  do 

these  words  occur  in  the  Bible  ? 

Lines  15,  16.  Out  the  window.    "  Out  "  is  thus  used  preposition- 
ally  instead  of  ''  out  of  "  in  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare  as  well  as  in 
some  more  recent  writers,  but  it  is  more  common  colloquially  than 
in  literature. 
Line  6  from  bottom.  I  mean  he ;  I  mean  the  twig.   Give  your 

idea  of  what  Thoreau  does  mean  here. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Turdus  migratorius.  Long  the  accepted 
scientific  name  of  the  American  robin,  which  is  now  known  to 
ornithologists  as  Planesticus  migratorius. 

Page  345,  line  11.  My  first  spring  night  in  the  woods.  We  must 
not  miss  the  beauty  of  this  description  of  the  first  spring  evening,  — 
the  sudden  outshoot  of  sunset  light  from  under  the  storm-clouds, 
the  song  of  the  first  robin  singing  as  gloriously  after  his  winter 
absence  as  if  it  were  still  the  summer  before,  the  freshness  and  life 
of  the  pines  and  oaks  wet  with  the  rain  and  gleaming  in  the  west 
ern  light,  the  arrival  of  the  honking  geese  from  their  long  South 
ern  journey,  their  hushed  clamor  as  they  settle  in  the  pond  near 
by,  and  finally  silence  and  the  closed  door  and  the  thinker  alone 
with  his  thoughts.  The  date  of  this  evening,  as  we  learn  from  the 
Journal,  was  March  26,  1846. 

Page  346,  verse.  Eurus  ad  Auroram,  etc.  From  Ovid's  Metamor 
phoses,  book  i,  lines  61,  62,  78-81. 

Last  two  lines.  While  such  a  sun,  etc.  "  And  while  the  lamp 
holds  out  to  burn,  The  vilest  sinner  may  return."  —  Isaac  Watts's 
Hymns  and  Spiritual  Songs,  book  i,  Hymn  88. 

Page  347,  line  17.  Entered  into  the  joy  of  his  Lord.  "Enter 
thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  lord."  —  Matthew,  xxv,  21  and  23. 

Page  348,  verse.    The  Golden  Age,  etc.   Translated  (doubtless  by 
Thoreau  himself)  from  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  book  i,  lines  89-96, 
107,  108. 
Line  5  after  verse.  The  sticks  which  boys  play  with  their 

fingers.  Evidently  clappers,  or  "  bones,"  are  referred  to. 
Lines  6-10  after  verse.   I  observed  a  very  slight  and  grace 
ful  hawk,  etc.  The  tumbling  described  is  a  well-known  habit  of 
the  marsh  hawk  during  the  mating-season. 


418  NOTES 

Page  349,  lines  3  and  2  from  bottom.  O  Death,  where  was  thy 
sting  ?  etc.  "  0  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  0  grave,  where  is  thy 
victory."  —  1  Corinthians,  xv,  55. 

Page  350,  line  3.  The  meadow-hen.  The  term  is  said  to  be  applied 
to  the  American  coot,  but  Thoreau  used  it  for  the  Virginia  rail  and 
perhaps  the  sora,  or  Carolina  rail.  See  the  Journal  (Index). 
Line  4.  The  booming  of  the  snipe.  The  sound  made  by  the 
snipe's  wings  as  he  performs  his  strange  courtship  flight.  The 
performance  is  observed  in  Massachusetts  only  during  the  spring 
migration  and  most  commonly  in  the  evening.  Thoreau  writes  in 
his  Journal  under  date  of  April  9,  1858:  "  I  hear  the  booming  of 
snipe  this  evening,  and  Sophia  [his  sister]  says  she  heard  them  on 
the  6th.  The  meadows  having  been  bare  so  long,  they  may  have 
begun  yet  earlier.  Persons  walking  up  or  down  our  village  street 
in  still  evenings  at  this  season  hear  this  singular  winnowing  sound 
in  the  sky  over  the  meadows  and  know  not  what  it  is.  This  '  boom 
ing  '  of  the  snipe  is  our  regular  village  serenade.  I  heard  it  this 
evening  for  the  first  time,  as  I  sat  in  the  house,  through  the  win 
dow.  Yet  common  and  annual  and  remarkable  as  it  is,  not  one  in  a 
hundred  of  the  villagers  hears  it,  and  hardly  so  many  know  what 
it  is.  ...  Mr.  Hoar  was  almost  the  only  inhabitant  of  this  street 
whom  I  had  heard  speak  of  this  note,  which  he  used  annually  to 
hear  and  listen  for  in  his  sundown  or  evening  walks." 
Last  six  lines.  I  love  to  see  that  Nature  is  so  rife,  etc.  We 
must  not  infer  any  cruelty  from  all  this.  Thoreau  could  be  tender 
and  sympathetic  when  the  concrete  occasion  arose,  but  just  now  he 
is  glorying  in  one  aspect  of  Nature,  —  her  inexhaustible  vigor  and 
prodigality.  His  outlook  was  broad  enough  to  see  the  health  of 
the  whole  in  the  disease  and  death  and  corruption  of  a  part. 

Page  351,  line  16.  The  wood  thrush.  It  must  have  been  the  hermit 
thrush  that  he  had  heard  "  long  before  "  the  first  week  in  May. 
The  wood  thrush  does  not  usually  arrive  in  the  latitude  of  Concord 
till  the  second  week  of  that  month,  but  the  hermit  comes  about  the 
middle  of  April  or  even  earlier.  Thoreau  did  not  distinguish  be 
tween  the  songs  of  these  two  birds,  both  of  which  are  found  in  the 
Concord  woods.  In  the  White  Mountains  and  in  Maine  he  mistook 
the  olive-backed  thrushes  also  as  well  as  the  hermits  for  the  species 
with  which  he  was  more  familiar,  and  called  them  all  wood  thrushes. 
Some  of  the  most  beautiful  passages  in  his  Journal  are  devoted  to 
the  song  of  the  "  wood  thrush." 

Line  7  from  bottom.  Calidas.  Kalidasa,  a  poet  and  dramatist  of 
India  and  accounted  one  of  the  great  poets  of  the  world.  The 
Sacontala  is  his  best-known  drama. 

Page  352,  lines  5-7.   He  breaks  his  fast,  etc.  For  poetic  purposes 


NOTES  419 

Thoreau  condenses  into  a  single  day  a  migration  flight  that  in 
reality  occupies  weeks  of  time  undoubtedly.  The  flight  is  not  per 
formed  all  at  one  time,  but  the  birds  linger  to  rest  and  feed  on  the 
way,  moving  along  as  circumstances  impel. 

Line  14.  Tierra  del  Fuego.  The  Spanish  signifies  "land  of 
fire." 

Line  5  from  bottom.  Picking  oakum.  Picking  old  rope-ends  for 
calking  the  seams  of  ships.  An  occupation  for  sailors  when  they 
are  not  required  for  more  active  work. 

Line  3  from  bottom.  Great-circle  sailing.  A  great  circle  is  a 
circle  on  the  surface  of  a  sphere  the  plane  of  which  passes  through 
the  centre  of  the  sphere.  It  is  the  largest  possible  circle  that  can 
be  drawn  on  a  sphere,  but  the  number  of  possible  great  circles  to  a 
sphere  is,  of  course,  infinite.  Great-circle  sailing  is  navigation  along 
the  arc  of  a  great  circle  of  the  earth.  It  traverses  the  shortest  dis 
tances  between  any  two  points.  Thoreau's  figure,  therefore,  means 
that  we  sail  stupidly  straight  ahead  without  going  out  of  our  course 
to  see  the  interesting  things  that  are  happening  elsewhere  in  the 
world. 

Lines  3  and  2  from  bottom.  The  doctors  prescribe  for  dis 
eases  of  the  skin  merely.  That  is,  they  do  not  go  below  the 
surface  of  things. 

Page  353,  line  10.  "White  on  the  chart.  The  coast  charts  leave  the 
interior  of  the  country  white  and  unmarked. 
Black.   That  is,  with  evil. 

Line  15.  Franklin.  Sir  John  Franklinf  the  explorer,  who  perished 
in  the  Arctic  Ocean  in  1847.  His  fate  remained  unknown  until 
1859,  and  many  expeditions  went  in  search  of  him  in  the  mean 
time,  among  them  two  fitted  out  by  Henry  Grinnell,  a  New  York 
merchant. 

Lines  17,  18.  Mungo  Park.  A  Scottish  explorer  who  was  drowned 
in  1806  during  a  fight  with  the  natives  while  exploring  the  course 
of  the  river  Niger. 

Line  18.  Lewis  and  Clark.  Meriwether  Lewis  and  William  Clark, 
who  conducted  an  important  exploration  of  our  Northwest  in 
1803-1806. 

Frobisher.  Sir  Martin  Frobisher,  an  English  navigator  who 
tried  to  discover  the  Northwest  Passage  in  1576. 

Line  5  from  bottom.  A  hummock  left  by  the  ice.  Thoreau's 
Journal  contains  many  observations  on  the  transportation  of 
meadow  hummocks  by  the  ice,  and  especially  of  the  transplanting 
of  the  buttonbush  by  that  means.  The  ice  on  overflowed  meadows 
often  freezes  solid  to  the  ground,  and  then,  being  raised  and  broken 
up  by  a  rise  of  the  river,  drifts  down-stream,  carrying  here  and 


420  NOTES 

there  the  hummocks  which  have  adhered  to  its  under  surface,  to 
deposit  them  in  a  new  place  and  raise  the  level  there. 

Lines  4  and  3  from  bottom.  Sacrifice  the  greater  to  the  leas. 
Perhaps  most  of  us  would  not  put  it  this  way.  Thoreau  had  little 
or  none  of  what  we  commonly  call  patriotism,  —  none,  at  least,  of 
the  kind  that  says,  "  Our  country,  right  or  wrong- "  ;  but  he  was  not 
lacking  in  public  spirit,  and  his  aims  were  noble,  not  selfish. 
Page  354,  lines  1,  2.  South-Sea  Exploring  Expedition.  The 
United  States  Exploring  Expedition  of  1838-1842,  commanded  by 
Lieut.  Charles  Wilkes,  U.  S.  N.  It  explored  the  Pacific  Ocean  and 
its  islands,  and  particularly  that  part  of  the  Antarctic  continent 
which  was  afterwards  called  Wilkes  Land. 

Lines  11,  12.  "Erret,  et  extremos  alter  scrutetur  Iberos," 
etc.  These  are  the  closing  lines  of  the  poem  "  On  an  Old  Man  of 
Verona  who  has  never  been  out  of  the  Suburbs  "  (De  Sene  Veronensi 
qui  Suburbium  nunquam  egressus  est) ,  by  Claudian,  a  Latin  poet  of 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  A.  D.  In  his  journal  entry  for  May  10, 
1841,  Thoreau  says,  "A  good  warning  to  the  restless  tourists  of 
these  days  is  contained  in  the  last  verses  of  Claudian 's  '  Old  Man 
of  Verona,'  "  which  he  proceeds  to  quote. 

Lines  13,  14.  Let  them  wander,  etc.  The  literal  translation  is, 
"  Let  another  wander  and  scrutinize  the  farthest  Iberians  (Span 
iards).  This  one  has  more  of  life,  that  one  has  more  of  the  road." 
Thoreau  substitutes  "  Australians  "  for  "  Iberians,"  as  better  suit 
ing  the  conditions  of  modern  geography. 

Lines  3, 4  after  verse.  Symmes' Hole.  Capt.  John  Cleves  Symmea 
of  St.  Louis  in  1818  advanced  the  theory  that  the  earth  was  hol 
low  within  and  open  at  the  poles,  and  that  the  interior  was  habit 
able  if  not  actually  inhabited.  An  amusing  account  of  Symmea 
and  the  methods  he  took  to  promulgate  his  ideas  will  be  found  in 
John  Fiske's  A  Century  of  Science. 

Line  5  after  verse.  Gold  Coast  and  Slave  Coast.  Two  sections 
of  the  African  coast  on  the  north  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Guinea. 

Lines  11,  12  after  verse.  Cause  the  Sphinx  to  dash  her  head 
against  a  stone.  That  is,  guess  all  riddles,  solve  all  problems. 
According  to  Hesiod,  the  Sphinx  propounded  a  riddle  to  all 
comers,  and  when  they  could  not  guess  it,  flung  them  from  the 
rock  near  the  city  of  Thebes  where  she  had  taken  her  station. 
Finally  (Edipus  guessed  her  riddle,  and  she  destroyed  herself  in 
the  same  way  that  she  had  killed  her  victims. 

Line  4  from  bottom.  Explore  thyself.  Tv&Qi  <rfavr6v  (gnothi 
seauton),  "  Know  thyself,"  an  old  Greek  maxim,  the  origin  of  which 
is  unknown,  though  it  has  been  enumerated  among  the  sayings  of 
the  Seven  Wise  Meuof  Greece,  some  attributing  it  to  Thales,  othera 


NOTES  421 

to  Chilon,  and  still  others  to  Solon.  It  has  also  been  attributed  to 
Plato,  Socrates,  Pythagoras,  and  other  philosophers. 
Lines  3  and  2  from  bottom.  Only  the  defeated  and  deserters 
go  to  the  wars.  Paradox  was  a  favorite  figure  of  Thoreau's. 
He  means  that  men  who  have  not  the  courage  to  study  themselves 
and  live  their  own  life  allow  themselves  to  be  swept  away  by  out 
side  influences. 

Last  line.  That  farthest  western  -way.  The  road  to  the  ulti 
mate  good.  Thoreau  says  "  western  way  "  because  that  is  the 
direction  that  exploration  has  taken,  —  exploration  and  the  "  star 
of  empire."  The  western  way  had  always  an  attraction  for  him. 
See  his  essay  on  "  Walking  "  in  Excursions. 

Page  355,  line  5.  Mirabeau.  The  Count  de  Mirabeau  (1749-1791) 
was  a  celebrated  orator  and  statesman  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion. 

Line  12.  Firm  resolve.  The  Journal  entry  for  July  21, 1851,  goe« 
on  to  quote  here  from  Chambers1  Edinburgh  Journal  (through 
Harper's  Magazine,  vol.  i,  p.  648)  Mirabeau's  further  conversation  : 
"  Tell  me,  Du  Saillant,  when  you  lead  your  regiment  into  the  heat 
of  battle,  to  conquer  a  province  to  which  he  whom  you  call  your 
master  has  no  right  whatever,  do  you  consider  that  you  are  per 
forming  a  better  action  than  mine,  in  stopping  your  friend  on  the 
king's  highway,  and  demanding  his  purse  ?  '  '  I  obey  without 
reasoning,'  replied  the  count.  '  And  I  reason  without  obeying, 
when  obedience  appears  to  me  to  be  contrary  to  reason,'  rejoined 
Mirabeau." 

Page  356,  last  line.  Hish  and  whoa.  Words  of  command  to  oxen. 
Bright.  A  favorite  name  for  an  ox. 

Page  357,  line  3.  Extra-vagant.  The  division  is  to  call  attention  to 
the  literal  meaning  of  the  Latin  from  which  the  word  is  derived, 
—  wandering  beyond. 

Line  10  from  bottom.  Translated.  Carried  across,  the  literal 
meaning  of  the  word. 

Page  358,  line  3.  Kabir.  A  Hindoo  religious  reformer  of  the  late 

Fifteenth  and  early  Sixteenth  centuries. 

Lines  9  and  8  from  bottom.  A  living  dog  is  better  than  a 
dead  lion.  From  Ecclesiastes,  ix,  4. 

Page  359,  last  paragraph.  There  was  an  artist.  Mr.  Sanborn  con 
siders  this  story  to  have  been  either  adapted  or  invented  by 
Thoreau.  It  seems  probable  that  it  is  entirely  original,  though 
modelled  after  the  Hindoo  fables  with  which  Thoreau  was 
familiar. 

Page  360,  line  3.  Kalpa.  This  is  the  Sanskrit  word  for  a  day  of  Brahma, 
a  period  of  4,320,000,000  of  our  years. 


422  NOTES 

Line  6.  Brahma  had  awoke  and  slumbered  many  times. 

That  is,  many  "  Kalpas  "  had  passed  by. 

Page  362,  lines  6,  7.  And  lo  !  creation  widens  to  our  view. 
Adapted  from  the  line  "  And  lo !  creation  widened  in  man's  view  " 
in  the  famous  sonnet  on  "  Night  and  Death  "  by  Blanco  White. 
Joseph  Blanco  White  (1775-1841)  was  a  Spaniard  of  Irish  descent 
who  lived  in  England  from  1810.  He  was  a  theologian,  but  is  best 
known  as  the  author  of  this  sonnet,  which  Coleridge  declared  to 
be  "  the  finest  and  most  grandly  conceived  sonnet  in  our  language." 
The  thought  in  the  preceding  sentence,  as  to  darkness  revealing 
the  heavenly  lights,  is  also  taken  from  this  sonnet. 

Line  8.  Croesus.  A  king  of  Lydia  in  the  sixth  century  B.  c.  His 
immense  wealth  became  proverbial. 

Line  15.  Near  the  bone  where  it  is  sweetest.  Alluding  to  the 
old  proverb,  "  The  nearer  the  bone  the  sweeter  the  meat." 

Line  9  from  bottom.  Tintinnabulum.  Here  again  Thoreau  uses 
the  Latin  word  for  "  bell "  when  he  means  the  sound  produced  by 
a  bell,  a  tintinnabulation. 

Page  363,  line  3.  The  Mameluke  bey.  When  Mohammed  Ali, 
viceroy  of  Egypt,  in  1811  massacred  the  members  of  the  historic 
body  of  cavalry  known  as  the  Mamelukes,  after  feasting  them  in 
the  citadel  at  Cairo,  a  single  man,  Emin  Bey,  was  said  to  have 
escaped  by  leaping  his  horse  from  the  ramparts  to  the  ground. 
The  story  is  denied  on  good  authority,  the  actual  fact  being  that 
the  sole  survivor  of  the  massacre  had  been  prevented  by  illness  from 
attending  the  banquet  at  all,  and  had  afterwards  been  spared  by 
Mohammed  Ali.  (The  Spectator,  Nov.  9  and  16,  1907.) 

Lines  11, 12.  God  is  only  the  president  of  the  day,  and 
Webster  is  his  orator.  That  is,  in  these  days  of  parades  and 
celebrations  God  is  looked  upon  only  as  a  master  of  ceremonies,  a 
presiding  officer  to  introduce  the  speakers. 

Lines  19,20.  Kittly-beiiders.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  define  this 
word,  though  it  is  not  found  in  all  the  dictionaries.  Other  forms 
which  occur  in  the  juvenile  vernacular  are  "  tittlety-benders," 
"  teetlety-benders,"  and  the  shorter  "  tittleties  "  and  "teetleties." 
Thoreau's  word  may  very  well  be  the  original  one,  the  first  part, 
"  kittly  "  being  the  old  Scotch  word  for  ticklish.  The  sport  of 
"running  tittleties "  on  thin  ice  is  always  ticklish  business. 
Page  364,  line  8  from  bottom.  Hollow  tree.  See  p.  247. 
Page  365,  line  1.  China  pride.  All  mankind,  in  Thoreau's  thought, 
were  in  the  same  state  of  uuprogressive  self -sufficiency  as  the 
Chinese. 

Line  16.  The  seven-years'  itch.  "  As  bad  as  the  seven-years' 
itch  "  was  formerly,  and  perhaps  is  still,  a  current  expression,  but 


NOTES  423 

the  editor  is  informed  by  a  well-known  specialist  on  skin  diseases 
that  it  is  a  purely  mythical  complaint. 

Line  17.  The  seventeen-year  locust.  A  species  of  cicada  which 
makes  its  appearance  in  the  mature  form  every  seventeen  years, 
living  the  intervening  time  in  the  larval  state  under  ground.  The 
brood  which  occurred  in  1852  in  Franklin,  Hampshire,  and  Bristol 
Counties,  Massachusetts,  is  probably  the  particular  one  referred  to. 

Page  366,  lines  8  and  7  from  bottom.  The  story  -which  has  gone 
the  rounds  of  New  England.  Doubtless  a  newspaper  story, 
which,  like  many  such  tales,  may  or  may  not  have  been  true ;  but 
it  served  Thoreau's  purpose  for  an  analogy.  He  was  always  look 
ing  for  analogies  between  the  physical  world  and  the  spiritual. 

Page  367,  line  6  from  bottom.  John  or  Jonathan.  John  Bull  and 
Brother  Jonathan  are  referred  to.  For  the  latter  personage  see 
note,  p.  374. 


INDEX 


ACTON  (Mass.),  136. 

Aes  alienum,  another's  brass,  a  very 
ancient  slough,  7. 

xEsculapius,  that  old  herb-doctor, 
154. 

Age  and  youth,  9. 

Aims-House  Farm,  283. 

America,  the  only  true,  228. 

"  Ainok "  against  T.,  society  run 
ning,  190. 

Amusements,  games  and,  despair 
concealed  under,  8,  9. 

Animal  food,  objections  to,  237. 

Animal  labor,  man  better  without 
the  help  of,  62,  63. 

Animal  life  and  heat  nearly  synony 
mous,  14. 

Ants,  battle  of  the,  253-257. 

Apples,  the  world  eating  green,  86. 

Architecture,  need  of  relation  be 
tween  man,  truth,  and,  51,  52. 

Asiatic  Russia,  Mme.  Pfeiffer  in, 
25. 

Atlas,  93. 

Atropos,  as  name  for  engine,  131. 

Auction,  of  a  deacon's  effects,  75  ;  or 
increasing,  75. 

Average,  the  law  of,  in  nature  and 
ethics,  321. 

Baker  Farm,  223-231,  307. 
Baker's  barn,  286. 

Bands  of  music  in  distance,  177, 178. 
Bartram,  William,  quoted,  75. 
Baskets,  strolling  Indian  selling,  20, 

21. 

Bean-Field,  The,  171-184. 
Bedford  (Mass.),  136. 
Behavior,  repentance  for  good,  11. 
Bells  of   Lincoln,   Acton,  Bedford, 

Concord,  the,  136. 
"  Best "  room,  the  pine  wood  behind 

house,  157. 

Bibles  of  mankind,  118, 119. 
Birds,  living  with  the,  95. 
Body  a  temple,  man's,  245. 
Bogs  with  hard  bottom,  363. 


Books,  how  to  read,  Ii2  ;  the  inherit* 

ance  of  nations,  114. 
Box,  living  in  a,  32. 
Brahmins,  their  forms  of  conscious 

penance,  4,  5  ;  Walden  ice  makes 

T.  one  with  the,  329. 
Bread  without  yeast,  68-70. 
Breed's  hut,  285. 
Bricks,  mortar  growing  harder  on, 

266. 

Brighton  —or  Bright-town,  148. 
Brister's  Hill,  252,  283,  284,  289,  294. 
Brister's  Spring,  289,  291. 
Brute  Neighbors,  247-262. 
Bug  from  an  egg  in  table  of  apple 

wood,  the,  366. 

Building  one's  own  house,  signifi 
cance  of,  50,  51. 
Business  habits  indispensable.strict, 

21,  22. 
Busk,  Indian  feast  of  first  fruits,  75. 

Calidas'  Sacontala  quoted,  351. 

Cambridge,  college  room  rent  com 
pared  with  T.'s,  55  ;  crowded  hives 
of,  150. 

Canadian  woodchopper,  159-166. 

Canoe,  water-logged  in  Walden 
Pond,  212. 

Cards  left  by  visitors,  143, 144. 

Carew,  Thomas,  quoted,  89. 

Caryatides,  gossips  leaning  against 
barn  like,  186. 

Cat,  the  Collins's,  48 ;  in  the  woods, 
domestic  and  "  winged,"  257, 258. 

Cato  Major,  quoted,  70,  93, 183,  268. 

Caves,  birds  do  not  sing  in,  31. 

Celebrating,  men,  a  committee  of 
arrangements,  always,  363. 

Celestial  Empire,  conditions  of  suc 
cessful  trade  with,  22. 

Cellar,  a  burrow  to  which  house  is 
but  a  porch,  49. 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  quoted,  224,  225. 

Chairs  for  society,  three,  155. 

Change  of  air,  352. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  quoted,  225. 


426 


INDEX 


Chapman,  George,  quoted,  37. 

Chastity,  the  flowering  of  man,  242, 
243. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  quoted,  234. 

Chickadees,  coming  of  the,  304. 

Chief  end  of  man,  9. 

Christianity,  adopted  as  an  improved 
method  of  agri-culture,  41. 

Circulating  library,  116,  117. 

Civilization  not  all  a  success,  34. 

Classics,  a  study  of  the,  111-113 ;  must 
be  read  in  the  original,  115. 

Clothing,  a  necessary  of  life,  13, 14  ; 
not  always  procured  for  true  util 
ity,  23  ;  new  and  old,  25,  26. 

Cock-crowing,  the  charms  of,  140- 
142. 

Codman  place,  the,  286. 

Cold  Friday,  dating  from,  280. 

Collins,  James,  Irishman  whose 
shanty  T.  bought,  47. 

Commerce,  in  praise  of,  131-136. 

Common  sense,  the  sense  of  men 
asleep,  357,  358. 

Compost,  better  part  of  man  soon 
plowed  into  soil  for,  6. 

Concord  (Mass.),  Walden  Pond  in, 
3;  travelled  a  good  deal  in,  4;  the 
farmers  of,  35;  house  surpassing 
the  luxury  of,  54;  little  fresh  meal 
and  corn  sold  in,  70;  Battle  Ground, 
95;  effect  of  a  fire  bell  on  people  liv 
ing  near,  103,  104;  culture,  117,  118; 
wiser  men  than  produced  by  soil 
of,  119;  hired  man  of,  120;  liberal 
education  in,  121;  "its  soothing 

sound  is ,"  127;  sign  of  a  trader 

in,  133;  bells  of,  136;  two-colored 
waters  of,  195 ;  Walden  bequeathed 
to,  214,  215;  fight  of  ants,  255;  D. 
Ingraham,  Esq.,  of,  283;  "to  the 
rescue,  "286;  291,308. 

Concord  River,  215,  219. 

Confucius,  quoted,  12, 149. 

Cooperation,  difficulties  of,  79,  80. 

Cost,  the  amount  of  life  exchanged 
for  a  thing,  34;  of  house,  items  of, 
54;  of  food  for  eight  months,  65, 
66;  total,  of  living,  66;  bean-field, 
179, 180. 

Cowper,  William,  quoted,  92. 

Cummings,  slave  of  Squire,  284. 

Damodara,  quoted,  97. 
Darwin,  Charles  R.,  quoted,  14. 


Davenant,  Sir  William,  Gondibert 
quoted,  286. 

Day,  deliberately,  like  nature,  spend 
ing  one,  108. 

Debt,  getting  in  and  out  of,  7. 

Desperation,  mass  of  men  lead  lives 
of  quiet,  8,  9. 

Dialogue  between  Hermit  and  Poet, 
247-249. 

Digby,  Sir  Kenelm,  quoted,  179. 

Discontented,  speaking  mainly  to 
the,  17,  18. 

Divinity  in  man !  Look  at  the  team 
ster,  8. 

Dog  in  the  woods,  a  village  Bose,  257. 

Doing-good,  a  crowded  profession, 
81. 

Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  Wil 
liam,  quoted,  219. 

Ducks  on  Walden  Pond,  262. 

Dug-out  houses  of  American  col 
onists,  42,  43. 

Dwelling-house,  what  not  to  make  it, 
31. 

Economy,  3-89. 

Education,  tuition  bills  pay  for  the 

least  valuable  part  of,  55,  56. 
Egotism  in  writers,  3,  4. 
Eloquence  a  transient  thing,  113. 
Elysian  life,  summer  makes  possible, 

15. 

England,  last  news  from,  105. 
Epidermis,  our  outside  clothes,  26. 
Epitome  of  the  year,  the  day,  332. 
Etesian      winds,      news      simmers 

through  men  like,  186. 
Evelyn,  John,  quoted,  10, 179. 
Expenses,  see  Cost;    farm,  60,  61; 

outgo  and  income,  bean-field,  179- 

181. 

Exploration  of  one's  self,  353-355. 
Extra  Vagance!   depends   on  how 

you  are  yarded,  357. 

Face,  imaginary  formation  by  thaw 
ing  of  the,  339,  340. 

Factory  system,  not  best  mode  of 
supplying  clothing,  29. 

Fair  Haven,  205,  219,  225,  274,  300,  307, 
330;  huckleberries  on  hill,  190, 
192;  Ledges,  308  ;  late  ice  on  pond, 
335. 

Farm,  the  Hollowell,  92 ;  a  model, 
218. 


INDEX 


427 


Farmer,  John,  reflections  of,  245. 

Farmer,  visits  from  a  long-headed, 
294. 

Farmers,  interesting  in  proportion 
as  they  are  poor,  218. 

Fashion,  worship  of,  28. 

Fate,  what  a  man  thinks  of  himself, 
his,  8. 

Father  tongue,  written  language  our, 
112. 

Fenda,  wife  of  "Sippio  Brister," 
284. 

Field,  John,  an  Irishman,  story  of, 
226. 

Fine  art,  no  place  for  a  work  of,  41, 
42. 

Fire,  purification  by,  75;  "  my  house 
keeper,"  279;  man  and,  280;  an 
alarm  of,  285. 

Fishes,  schools  of,  in  Walden  Pond, 
210,  211;  of  thought,  297. 

Fishing,  with  silent  man,  192;  at 
night,  194;  alone  detains  citizens 
at  Walden  Pond,  235,  236  ;  impos 
sible  to  T.  without  loss  of  self- 
respect,  236,  237;  in  winter,  313, 
314. 

Fitchburg  (Mass.),  going  to,  59. 

Fitchburg  Railroad,  127. 

Flint's  Pond,  201,  223,  330-333  ;  or 
Sandy,  in  Lincoln,  216-219 ;  covered 
with  snow,  like  Baffin's  Bay,  299. 

Food,  a  necessary  of  life,  13;  the  fuel 
of  man's  body,  14;  general  consid 
eration  of,  60-72 ;  objections  to  ani 
mal,  237;  desirability  of  simple, 
238-241. 

Former  Inhabitants  and  Winter  Vis 
itors,  282-298. 

Fox,  shooting  a,  307. 

Foxes  outside  T.'s  house,  301. 

Freeman,  "  Sippio  Brister,"  284. 

Frogs,  troonk  of  bull-,  139,  140. 

Fruits,  gathering  autumn,  263. 

Fuel,  a  necessary  of  life,  13,  14;  of 
man's  body,  food,  14. 

Furniture,  generally  considered,  72- 
76;  moved  out  of  doors,  125. 

Gazette,  news  of  political  parties, 
not  of  nature,  printed  in  the,  19. 

Gilpin,  William,  quoted,  276,  317. 

God,  clothes  lit  to  worship,  in,  25. 

"  God's  Drop,"  proposed  as  name  for 
Walden  Pond,  215. 


Good  Genius,  advice  of  T.'s,  230. 

Gookin,  Daniel,  quoted,  32. 

Goose,  stray,  cackling   like    spirit 

of   the  fog,  46;  honking  of,  300, 

345. 

Goose  Pond,  219  ;  muskrats  in,  299. 
Gossip,  stroll    to  village    to   hear, 

185. 

Ground-nut,  the,  264,  265. 
Guns,  sound  of  distant  big,  176, 

Hare,  the,  309,  310. 

Harivansa,  the,  quoted,  95. 

Hasty-pudding,  friends  flee  approach 
of,  271. 

Hawk,  watching  a,  348,  349. 

Hebe,  a  worshipper  of,  154. 

Hercules,  labors  of,  trifling  com 
pared  with  those  of  T.'s  neigh 
bors,  5. 

Herds,  the  keepers  of  men,  62. 

Hermit.   See  Dialogue. 

Higher  Laws,  232-246. 

Hippocrates,  on  cutting  the  nails,  10, 
11. 

Hollowell  place,  the,  91,  92. 

Homer,  Iliad,  111;  never  yet  printed 
in  English,  115  ;  quoted,  160. 

Horses  to  hang  clothes  on,  wooden, 
23,  24. 

Hospitalality,  not  hospitality  but, 
168. 

Hounds  hunting  woods  in  winter, 


House,  every  spot  possible  site  for  a, 
90  ;  the  ideal,  266-271. 

House-raising  at  Walden  Pond,  49, 
50. 

House- Warming,  263-281. 

Houses,  superfluities  in  our,  39. 

Housework,  a  pleasant  pastime,  125. 

Huckleberries  never  reach  Boston, 
192. 

Hunters, boys  to  be  made  first  sports 
men,  then,  234. 

Hyde,  Tom,  the  tinker,  quoted,  360, 
361. 

Hygeia,  no  worshipper  of,  154. 

I,  the  first  person,  retained  in  this 

book,  3,  4. 
Ice,  looking  through  the,  on  Walden 

Pond,  272  ;  whooping  of  the,  301 ; 

cutting  through,  to  get  water,  312, 

313  ;    cutting   on   Walden   Pond, 


INDEX 


323-329;    beauty  of  Walden,   327; 

booming  of  the,  333. 
Indian  houses  in  Mass,  colony,  32, 

33. 
Ingraham,  Cato,  slave  of  Duncan, 

283. 

Inherited  property  a  misfortune,  5. 
Inspector  of  storms,  self  appointed, 

19,  20. 

lolaus,  and  hydra's  head,  5. 
Irish,  physical  condition  of  the  poor, 

38,  39. 
44  It  is  no  dream  of  mine,"  verse, 

215. 

Jays,  arrival  of  the,  303,  304. 
Jesuits  and  Indian  torture,  83. 
Jesus  Christ,  liberalizing  influence 

of,  120. 
Johnson,  Edward,  quoted,  42,  43. 

Khoung-tseu,  105. 
Kieou-he-yu,  105. 
Kirby,  William,  and  Spence,  quoted, 

237,  256. 
Kittlybenders,  let  us  not  play  at, 

363. 

Laborer,  choosing  occupation  of  a 
day,  77 ;  falling  in  pond  with  many 
clothes  on,  83. 

Laboring  man  has  no  time  to  be  any 
thing  but  a  machine,  the,  6,  7. 

Laing,  Samuel,  quoted,  29,  30. 

Lake,  the  earth's  eye,  a,  206. 

Lake  Champlain,  Long  Wharf  to, 
132. 

"  Leach-hole  "  in  Walden  Pond,  322. 

Leaf,  resemblance  of  sand  formation 
to  a,  338. 

Lexington  (Mass.),  306. 

Liebig,  J.  F.  von,  quoted,  14. 

Life,  cares  and  labors  of,  6,  7 ;  an 
experiment,  10;  students  not  to 
play  or  study  life,  but  to  live,  56, 
57;  purposes  of,  100*  101 ;  one  has 
imagined,  living  the,  356;  live 
your,  however  mean,  361 ;  in  us, 
like  the  water  in  the  river,  366. 

"  Light-winged  Smoke,  Icarian 
bird,1'  verse,  279. 

Lilac,  growing  by  deserted  houses, 
290. 

Limits  of  living,  7. 

Lincoln   (Mass.),   95,    136,  173,   282; 


owls  in  woods  of,  138, 139  ;  Flint's 
Pond  in,  216  ;  chestnut  woods  of, 
263  ;  burying-ground,  284, 299. 

Lining  of  beauty  for  houses,  44. 

Little  Reading,  116. 

Loneliness,  desirable,  147, 151, 152. 

Loon,  hunting  and  a  game  with  the, 
258-262. 

Luxury,  fruit  of  a  life  of,  16. 

Lyceum,  121, 122. 

Make-a-Stir,  Squire,  8. 

Manilla  hemp,  132. 

Maples,  autumn  colors  of,  265. 

Massasoit,  visited  by  Winslow,  158. 

Maturing,  no  need  of  haste  towards, 

359. 

Mencius,  quoted,  242,  243. 
Mentors,  of  little  use,  10. 
Middlesex  Cattle  Show,  36. 
Milky  Way  ?  is  not  our  planet  in  the, 

147. 
Minding  his  business,  till  ineligible 

as  town  officer,  T. ,  20. 
Minerva,  Momus  objects  to  house  of, 

37. 

MlrCamar  Uddin  Mast,  quoted,  111. 
Mirabeau,     on     highway    robbery, 

quoted,  355. 
Model  farm,  a,  218. 
"Modern   improvements,"  an  illu 
sion  about,  57,  58. 
Momus,     objection     to    Minerva's 

house  by,  37. 
Monuments,  good  sense  worth  more 

than,  64. 
Morning,  work,  a  man's,  40 ;  renewal 

of,  98-100;  work  in  the  early,  172, 

173. 

Mortgages,  abundance  of,  in  Con 
cord,  35,  36. 
Mouse,  in  T.'s  house,  249,  250;  the 

wild,  309. 
Muskrats,  colony  of,  185;  in  Goose 

Pond,  299. 

Nature,  adapted  to  our  weakness  as 
to  our  strength,  12;  a  liberty  in, 
143 ;  no  melancholy  or  solitude  in 
the  midst  of,  145-147;  the  medi 
cines  of,  153  ;  known  only  as  a  rob 
ber  by  the  ,  farmer,  183  ;  men  who 
become  a  part  of,  232,  233;  ques 
tions  and  answers  of,  312;  our 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of,  320; 


INDEX 


439 


helping  lay  the  keel  of,  334  ;  prin 
ciple  of  operations  of,  340;  man's 
need  of,  350. 

Necessaries  of  life,  12, 13. 

Necessity,  a  seeming  fate,  commonly 
called,  6. 

Negro  slavery,  8. 

Neighborhood,  avoiding  a  bad,  our 
selves,  37. 

Neva  marshes  at  Walden  Pond,  no, 
23. 

New  clothes,  beware  of  all  enter 
prises  requiring,  26. 

New  England,  Walden  of  and  for 
people  of,  4;  hardships  endured 
that  men  may  die  in,  15 ;  wealth 
causes  respect  in,  25  ;  mean  life 
lived  by  inhabitants  of,  107;  can 
hire  all  the  wise  men  of  the  world 
to  teach  her,  122;  natural  sports 
of,  233;  Rum,  285;  Night's  Enter 
tainment,  a,  297. 

New  Hollander,  naked  when  Euro 
pean  shivers  in  clothes,  14. 

New  Netherland,  Secretary  of  Pro 
vince,  quoted,  43. 

"News?  What's  the,"  104;  futility 
of  the,  104. 

Night,  walking  the  woods  by,  187- 
190. 

Nilometer.    See  Realometer. 

Nine  Acre  Corner,  White  Pond  in, 
199. 

"  No  Admittance,"  never  printed  on 
T.'s  gate,  18. 

Novel  reading,  116, 117. 

Nutting  in  Lincoln  woods,  263,  264. 

Nutting,  Sam,  an  old  hunter,  308. 

Olympus,  the  outside  of  the  earth 
everywhere,  94. 

Opposition  to  society,  355. 

Ornaments,  significance  of  archi 
tectural,  52. 

Overseer,  yourself  the  worst,  8. 

Ovid,  quoted,  6,  346,  348. 

Owl,  winged  brother  of  the  cat, 
watching  an,  293. 

Owls,  wailing  of,  138-140;  in  Walden 

.  woods  in  winter,  300,  301. 

Pantaloons  not  to  be  mended  like 

legs,  24. 

Partridge,  the,  250-252,  304,  311. 
Pauper,  visit  from  half-witted,  167. 


Penance,  people  of  Concord  doing,  4. 

Penobscot  Indians,  living  in  cotton 
tents,  31. 

Perfection,  artist  of  Kouroo  who 
strove  after,  359. 

Pfeiffer,  Mme.  Ida,  quoted,  25. 

Philanthropy,  generally  considered, 
82-86. 

Philosopher,  what  he  is  and  is  not, 
16;  visits  from  a,  295-298. 

Philosophers,  ancient,  poor  in  out 
ward,  rich  in  inward  riches,  15,  16. 

Pickerel,  Walden,  204,  205,  314. 

Pine  tree,  felling,  though  more  its 
friend  than  foe,  47. 

Plants,  the  nobler  valued  for  their 
fruit  in  air  and  light,  17. 

Plato,  119 ;  definition  of  a  man,  165. 

Pleasant  Meadow,  adjunct  to  Baker 
Farm,  225. 

Poet,  visits  from  a,  295.  See  Dia 
logue. 

Poets,  never  yet  read  by  mankind, 
115,  116. 

Pond  in  Winter,  The,  312-329. 

Ponds,  The,  192-222. 

Poor,  houses  of  the,  37,  38. 

Post-office,  easily  dispensed  with, 
104. 

Present  moment,  meeting  of  two 
eternities,  past  and  future,  18. 

Public  opinion,  compared  with  pri 
vate,  8. 

Pumpkin,  sitting  alone  on  a,  41;  none 
so  poor  that  he  need  sit  on  a,  72. 

Purslane,  dinner  of,  68. 

Quoil,  Hugh,  an  Irishman,  288. 

Rabbit,  the,  310. 

Railroad  car,  growing  luxuries  in, 
41;  slowness  and  heedlessness  of, 
58,59;  men  overridden  by,  102,  103; 
listening  with  praise  to  sound  of, 
127-136;  Iron,  Trojan  Horse  ruin 
ing  Walden,  213,  214. 

Rain,  enjoyment  of,  147. 

Rainbow,  standing  in  light  of,  224. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  quoted,  6. 

Reading,  110-122. 

Reality,  finding,  108, 109. 

Realometer,  not  Nilometer,  but  a, 
109. 

Rent,  annual  tax  that  would  buy  a 
village  of  wigwams,  33. 


430 


INDEX 


Reporter,  with  labor  for  pains,  19. 
Resignation,     confirmed     despera 
tion,  8. 

Robin,  the  evening,  344. 
Room  for  thoughts,  156. 
Runaway  slave,  168, 169. 

Sadi  of  Shiraz,  Sheik,  quoted,  87. 

Saint  Vitus'  dance,  103. 

Sand  cherry,  tasted  out  of  compli 
ment  to  Nature,  126. 

Sand  formations  due  to  thaw,  336- 
340. 

Sardanapalus,  at  best  houses  trav 
eller  considered  a,  40. 

Savage,  his  advantage  over  civilized 
man,  35 ;  life,  instinct  towards,  231. 

Scarecrow  taken  for  man  whose 
clothes  it  wears,  24. 

School,  the  uncommon,  122. 

Seeds  of  virtues,  not  beans,  181. 

Sensuality,  in  eating  and  other  appe 
tites,  241-246. 

Serenade,  like  the  music  of  the  cow, 
137. 

Sewing,  work  you  may  call  endless, 
25. 

Shanty,  purchase  of  Collins's,  47,  48. 

Shelter,  a  necessary  of  life,  13;  how 
it  became  a  necessary,  29,  30;  gen 
erally  considered,  29-45. 

Shingles  of  thought,  whittling,  297. 

Shirts,  our  liber,  or  true  bark,  26. 

Simplicity  of  life,  101,  102. 

Skins,  sale  of,  308. 

Sleepers,  railroad,  102, 103. 

Snake  under  water  in  torpid  state, 
45,46. 

Snow,  the  Great,  132,  142;  dating 
from  the  Great,  280;  walking  in 
the,  292. 

Society,  commonly  too  cheap,  151. 

Sounds,  123-142. 

South,  laborers  a  staple  production 
of  the,  39. 

Spain,  specimen  news  from,  105. 

Sparrow,  the  first,  of  spring,  342. 

Spectator,  the  part  of  man  which  is, 
149, 150. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  quoted,  158. 

Sportsmen,  making  boys,  234. 

Spring,  330-361. 

Spring,  coming  of  the,  333, 334;  morn 
ing,  moral  effect  of  a,  346,  347. 

Squire  Make-a-Stir,  8. 


Squirrel,  red,  watching  the,  301-303; 

in  spring,  coming  oi,  342. 
Staff,  the  artist's,  which  became  the 

fairest  creation  of  Brahma,  359. 
Statistics.    See  Cost. 
Stone,  nations'  pride  in  hammered, 

63. 
Stove,  disadvantages  of  cooking-,  280, 

281. 
Stratton,  now  the  Alms-House,Fann, 

283;  family,  homestead  of,  284. 
Students,  poor,  Walden  addressed 

to,  4. 

Sudbury  (Mass.),  97,  335. 
Sumach  growing  by  T.'s  house,  126. 
Survey  of  Walden  Pond,  315-324. 
Surveyor  of  forest  paths  and  across 

lot  routes,  20. 
Button  (Mass.),  292. 

Tching-thang,  quoted,  98. 

Temperature  of  pond  water  in 
spring,  330. 

Tests,  our  lives  tried  by  a  thousand 
simple,  11. 

Thanksgivings,  cattle-shows  and  so- 
called,  183. 

Thaw,  sand  formations  due  to,  336; 
Thor  and,  341. 

"  They,"  an  authority  impersonal  as 
the  Fates,  27. 

Thieving,  practiced  only  where  pro 
perty  is  unevenly  divided,  191. 

Thor  and  thaw,  341. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  goes  to  live  by 
Walden  Pond,  3 ;  prefers  to  talk  in 
the  first  person  singular,  3,  4 ;  be 
ginning  in  the  woods,  45;  purchase 
of  Collins's  shanty,  47;  began  to 
occupy  house,  49;  planted  beans, 
60;  earnings  and  spendings,  65-67; 
making  bread,  68;  declined  offer 
of  a  mat,  74 ;  imaginary  purchase 
of  Hollowell  farm,  92 ;  situation  of 
house,  95, 126 ;  purpose  in  going  to 
woods,  100,  101 ;  hoed  beans,  did 
not  read  books,  123;  listening  to 
various  sounds,  127-142 ;  friendship 
with  Canadian  woodchopper,  159- 
166  ;  devotion  to  husbandry,  179 ; 
earnings  and  spendings  on  bean- 
field,  180,  181 ;  put  in  jail  for  not 
paying  taxes,  190;  fishing  in  Wal 
den  Pond,  192-195 ;  boiling  chowder 
about  1824,  200;  earliest  days  on 


INDEX 


431 


Waldeii  Pond,  212,  213  ;  first  begins 
to  inhabit  house  in  cold  weather, 
2(38 ;  finishes  house  with  plastering, 
271;  surveys  Walden  Fond,  315; 
leaves  Walden,  Sept.  6,  1847,  351. 

Thoughts,  sell  your  clothes  and  keep 
your,  361. 

Thrasher,  brown,  175. 

Thseng-tseu,  quoted,  241. 

Tierra  del  Fuego,  14. 

Time,  but  a  stream  to  fish  in,  109. 

Tintinnabulum  from  without,  the 
noise  of  contemporaries,  362. 

Tools,  men  the  tools  of  their,  41. 

Trees,  visits  to  particular,  223. 

Truth,  to  be  preferred  to  all  things, 
364. 

Turtle-dove,  long  ago  lost  hound,  bay 
horse,  and,  18,  19. 

Varro,  Marcus  Terentius,  quoted, 
183. 

Vedas,  the,  quoted,  99,  240;  andZen- 
davestas,  115. 

Vegetable-made  bones,  oxen  with, 
10. 

Village,  The,  185-191. 

Village,  should  play  part  of  a  noble 
man  as  patron  of  art,  121,  122;  a 
great  news-room,  185 ;  running  the 
gauntlet  in  the,  186. 

Virid  Lake  as  a  name  for  White 
Pond,  219. 

Vishnu  Purana,  the,  quoted,  298. 

Visitors,  155-170. 

Wachito  River,  104. 

Walden,  road,  townsman  on,  148; 
vale,  giving  notice,  by  smoke,  to 
inhabitants  of,  279;  snow  in  roads 
of,  294;  vale,  making  amends  for 
silence,  to,  295. 

Walden  Pond,  house  on  the  shore  of, 
3;  purpose  in  living  by,  to  transact 
private  business,  21 ;  advantages 
of,  as  a  place  of  business,  23; 
March,  1845,  went  to  woods  by,  45; 
of  their  own  natures,  fishing  in  the, 
145;  no  more  lonely  than,  152;  old 
settler  who  dug,  152  ;  bottomless 
as,  166;  scenery  of,  195-216;  origin 
of  paving  of,  202;  temperature  of 
water  in,  203,  204;  animals  in,  204- 
20G  ;  purity  of,  214;  fishing  alone 
detains  citizens  at,  235 ;  ducks  on, 


262;  first  ice  on,  272;  dates  of  first 
freezing  over,  275;  291;  bare  of 
snow,  2y9;  fox  on  thin  ice  of,  306; 
pickerel  of,  314;  surveying  and 
sounding,  315-324;  cutting  ice  on, 
323-329  ;  breaking  up  of  ice  in,  329- 
334. 

Walden  Woods,  geese  alighting  in, 
274  ;  Cato  Ingraharn  living  in,  283; 
Zilpha  living  in,  283 ;  Hugh  Quoil 
living,  in,  288;  owls  hooting  the 
lingua  vernacula  of,  300;  fox 
hunting  in,  306. 

Waldenses,  pickerel,  315. 

Wasps,  visits  from,  265. 

Water,  colors  of,  195-197;  transpar 
ency  of,  197-199. 

Wayland  (Mass.),  173. 

Weeds,  destruction  of  various,  178. 

"Welcome,  Englishmen!  "  170. 

Well  Meadow,  307. 

West  Indian  provinces  of  the  fancy 
and  imagination,  8. 

Weston  (Mass.),  308. 

"  What 's  the  railroad  to  me  ?  " 
verse,  135.  136. 

Where  I  Lived,  and  What  I  Lived 
for,  90-109. 

Whip-poor-wills,  singing  of,  137. 

White  Pond,  199,  201,  219,221;  plan 
of,  320. 

Wigwam,  in  Indian  gazettes,  symbol 
of  a  day's  march,  30. 

Winslow,  Edward,  quoted,  158. 

Winter  Animals,  299-311. 

Winter  Visitors,  Former  Inhabit 
ants,  and,  282-298. 

Wood,  gathering,  275 ;  relative  value 
of,  in  different  places,  277. 

Woodchuck,  eating  a,  66. 

Wood-pile,  the,  278. 

Woods,  turning  face  to  the,  21. 

Work,  exaggerated  importance  of 
our,  12. 

Wyman,  the  potter,  288. 

Yellow  Pine  Lake,  why  suggested  as 

a  name  for  White  Pond,  219. 
Young,  Arthur,  61. 
Youth  and  age,  9. 

Zendavestas,  Vedas  and,  115. 
Zilpha,  a  colored  woman,  283. 
Zoroaster,  let  the  hired  man  com 
mune  with,  120. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
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